OLIVER  CROMWELL 

BY    JOHN    A\ORLEV 


OLIVER    CROMWELL 


OLIVER  CROMWELL 

BY 
JOHN   MORLEY,  M.P. 


FULLY  ILLUSTRATED  WITH  CAREFULLY  AUTHEN- 
TICATED PORTRAITS  IN  PUBLIC  AND  PRIVATE 
GALLERIES,  AND  WITH  REPRODUCTIONS  OF 
CONTEMPORANEOUS  PRINTS  IN  THE  BRITISH 
MUSEUM     AND    THE     UNIVERSITY     OF    OXFORD. 


NEW  YORK 
THE   CENTURY  CO. 

1900 


Copyright,  1899,  1900,  by 
The  Century  Co. 


The  DeVinne  Press. 


il^K 


NOTE 

Everybody  who  now  writes  about  Cromwell  must, 
apart  from  old  authorities,  begin  by  grateful  acknow- 
ledgment of  his  inevitable  debt  to  the  heroic  labors  of 
Mr.  Gardiner,  our  great  historian  of  the  seventeenth 
century;  and  hardly  less  to  the  toil  and  discernment 
of  Mr.  Firth,  whose  contributions  to  the  "Dictionary 
of  National  Biography"  show  him,  besides  much  else, 
to  know  the  actors  and  the  incidents  of  the  civil  wars 
with  a  minute  intimacy  commonly  reserved  for  the 
things  of  the  time  in  which  a  man  actually  lives. 

If  I  am  asked  why,  then,  I  need  add  a  new  study  of 
Oliver  to  the  lives  of  him  now  existing  from  those  two 
most  eminent  hands,  my  apology  must  be  that  I  was 
committed  to  the  enterprise  (and  I  rather  think  that 
some  chapters  had  already  appeared)  before  I  had  any 
idea  that  these  giants  of  research  were  to  be  in  the 
biographic  field.  Finding  myself  more  than  half  way' 
across  the  stream,  I  had  nothing  for  it  but  to  persevere, 
with  as  stout  a  stroke  as  I  could,  to  the  other  shore. 

Then  there  is  the  brilliant  volume  of  my  friend  of  a 
lifetime,  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison.  By  him  my  trespass 
will,  I  know,  be  forgiven  on  easy  terms;  for  the  wide 


rX    -■*»    -~,  ,-,_  |_j5_ ,  am 


compass  of  his  attainments  as  historian  and  critic,  no 
less  than  his  close  observation  of  the  world's  affairs, 
will  have  long  ago  discovered  to  him  that  any  such 
career  and  character  as  Cromwell's,  like  one  of  the 
great  stock  arguments  of  old-world  drama,  must  still 
be  capable  of  an  almost  endleae  range  of  presentment 
and  interpretation. 

J.  M. 


CONTENTS 


Boot?  ®ne 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

9 


I  Early  Life 

II  The  State  and  its  Leaders 

III  Puritanism  and  the  Double  Issue 

IV  The  Interim         ...... 

V  The  Long  Parliament         ... 

VI  The  Eve  of  the  War          .         .         .         . 

VII  The  Five  Members  —  the  Call  to  Arms 

Boof?  Uwo 


I    Cromwell  in  the  Field 115 

II    Marston  Moor  130 

III  The    Westminster    Assembly    and    the    Con- 

flict OF  Ideals 144 

IV  The  New  Model 163 

V   The  Day  of  Naseby 176 

JBoo\i  Ubree 

I    The  King  a  Prisoner 195 

II  The  Crisis  of  1647     ......  209 

III  The  Officers  as  Politicians     .        .        .        .  21Q 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

IV   The  King's  Flight 

V   Second  Civil  War  —  Cromwell  at  Preston 
Final  Crisis  —  Cromwell's  Share  in  it 


VI 


VII 


The  Death  of  the  King 


PAGE 

241 

253 
262 


JBoof?  jfour 


I  The  Commonwealth    . 

II  Cromwell  in  Ireland 

III  In  Scotland 

IV  From  Dunbar  to  Worcester     . 

V  Civil  Problems  and  the  Soldier 

VI  The  Breaking  of  the  Long  Parliament 

VII  The  Reign  of  the  Saints 


277 
286 
300 
310 
318 
329 
342 


3Book  3f  tve 

I    First  Stage  of  the  Protectorate    .         .         .  355 

11    A  Quarrel  with  Parliament    . 

•  372 

Ill    The  Military  Dictatorship 

•  381 

IV    The  Reaction 

•  393 

V    A  Change  of  Tack     . 

.  401 

VI    Kingship       .... 

•  415 

VII    Personal  Traits 

.  426 

VIII    Foreign  Policy    . 

•  434 

IX   Growing  Embarrassments 

•  449 

X   The  Close 

•  459 

Index     

•  473 

LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


OLIVER  CROMWELL Frontispiece. 

From  the  portrait  by  Samuel  Cooper,  in  Sidney  Sussex  College,  Cambridge, 
England. 

Facingpage 
TITLE-PAGE  OF  THE  SOLDIERS'  POCKET-BIBLE.  A  COPY 
OF    WHICH    WAS    CARRIED    BY    EVERY    SOLDIER    IN 

CROMWELL'S   ARMY... i 

From  an  original  copy  in  the  possession  of  the  Rev.  T.  Cromwell  Bush. 

ROBERT    CROMWELL,  FATHER   OF   OLIVER 12 

From  the  onginal  portr; 
of  the  Earl  of  Sandwich 


From  the  onginal  portrait  by  Robert  Walker  at  Hinchinbrook,  by  permission 
-  ■     "     ■  of  S:     •    •  • 


ELIZABETH    CROMWELL,  MOTHER   OF   OLIVER 12 

From  the  original  portrait  by  Robert  Walker  at  Hinchinbrook,  by  permission 
of  the  Earl  of  Sandwich. 

ELIZABETH,  DAUGHTER  OF  SIR  JAMES  BOURCHIER,  AND 

WIFE    OF   OLIVER    CROMWELL 16 

From  the  portrait  by  Sir  Peter  Lely  in  the  collection  of  the  Rev.  T.  Cromwell 
Bush. 


KING   CHARLES   I 24 

From  a  photograph  by  1 
Dyck  at  Windsor  Castle. 

QUEEN    HENRIETTA   MARIA 32 

From  a  photograph  by 
Dyck  at  Windsor  Castle. 


From  a  photograph  by  Franz  Hanfstaengl  of  the  origmal  portrait  by  Van 
sde. 


From  a  photograph  by  Franz   Hanfstaengl  of  the  original  portrait  by  Van 


WILLIAM    LAUD,  ARCHBISHOP   OF   CANTERBURY 48 

From  the  portrait  at  Hinchinbrook,  by  Stone,  after  Van  Dyck,  by  permission 
of  the  Earl  of  Sandwich. 

SIR  HARRY  VANE 64 

After  a  portrait  by  Sir  Peter  Lely. 

JOHN   HAMPDEN 64 

After  an  old  print  in  the  collection  of  the  Art  for  Schools  Association. 

JOHN   PYM 64 

After  a  portrait  by  C.  Janssen  in  the  South  Kensington  Museum. 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing  page 

EDWARD  HYDE,  FIRST  EARL  OF   CLARENDON 72 

From  a  photograph  by  Walker  &  Boutall  of  the  portrait  by  Gerard  Soest  in 
the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

GEORGE  DIGBY,  EARL  OF  BRISTOL 72 

After  a  portrait  by  Van  Dyck. 

LUCIUS  GARY,  VISCOUNT  FALKLAND 72 

From  the  original  portrait  at  Chequers  Court,  by  permission  of  Mrs.  Frank- 
land-Russell- Astley. 

JOHN  SELDEN 72 

After  a  portrait  by  Lely,  engraved  by  Vertue. 

THOMAS  WENTWORTH,  EARL  OF  STRAFFORD 76 

From  a  photograph  by  Walker  &  Boutall  of  the  c 
trait  Gallery  of  the  original  portrait  by  Van  Dyck. 


Froma  photograph  by  Walker  &  Boutall  o£the  copy  in  the  National  Por- 
ofth(       '   ■     ■ 


THE  TRUE  MANER  OF  THE  SITTING  OF  THE  LORDS 
AND  COMMONS  OF  BOTH  HOWSES  OF  PARLIAMENT 
UPON  THE  TRYAL  OF  THOMAS  EARLE  OF  STRAFFORD, 

LORD  LIEUTEN.\NT  OF  IRELAND.  1641 80 

From  a  contemporary'  print  in  the  British  Museum  of  a  copperplate  designed 
and  engraved  by  Hollar. 

WILLIAM  JUXON,  D.C.L 88 

From  a  photograph   by  Walker  &  Boutall  of  the  original  portrait  in  the 
National  Portrait  Gallery. 

JAMES  USSHER.  D.D.  (AGE  74) 88 

From  a  photograph  by  Walker  &  Boutall  of  the  original  portrait  by  Sir  Peter 
Lely  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

WILLIAM    LENTHALL.    SPEAKER    OF    THE     HOUSE     OF 

COMMONS •. 104 

From  a  photograph  by  Walker   &  Boutall  of  the  original  portrait  in  the 
National  Portrait  Gallery. 

RALPH,  LORD  HOPTON,  OF  STRATTON,  K.  B  108 

From  a  photograph  by  Walker  &  Boutall  of  the  original  portrait  in  the 
National  Portrait  Gallery. 

ROBERT  DEVEREUX,  EARL  OF  ESSEX 120 

From  a  miniature  by  Cooper  at  Windsor  Castle,  by  special  permission  of 
Her  Majesty  the  Queen. 

WILLIAM    CAVENDISH,    DUKE    (PREVIOUSLY    EARL)    OF 

NEWCASTLE 128 

After  the  portrait  by  Van  Dyck. 

THOMAS.  THIRD  LORD  FAIRFAX 136 

From  the  miniature   at  Windsor   Castle,   by   special   permission    of   Her 
Majesty  the  Queen. 

FERDINAND,  SECOND  LORD  FAIRFAX 136 

From  the  obverse  and  reverse  of  a  medal  in  the  British  Museum. 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing  page 

GEORGE,  LORD  GORING 140 

From  the  miniature  at  Windsor  Castle,  by  special  permission  of  Her  Majesty 
the  Queen. 

SIR  WILLIAM  WALLER 164 

From   a   photograph   by  Walker  &  Boutall  of  the  original  portrait  in  the 
National  Portrait  Gallery. 

JAMES  GRAHAM,  FIFTH  EARL   AND    FIRST   MARQUIS  OF 

MONTROSE 172 

Drawn  by  George  T.  Tobin  after  a  portrait  by  Van  Dyck  (ascribed  also  to 
William  Dobson),  by  permission  of  the  Countess  of  Warwick. 

SIR  JACOB  ASTLEY,  AFTERWARD  LORD  ASTLEY 180 

From  a  print  in  the  British  Museum. 

PRINCE  RUPERT 184 

From  the  original  portrait  by  Van  Dyck  at  Hinchinbrook,  by  permission  of 
the  Earl  of  Sandwich. 


JOHN  PAWLET,  MARQUIS  OF  WINCHESTER. 
Drawn  by  George  T.  Tobin  after  a  print  in  the  British  Mus 
trait  by  Peter  Oliver. 

SIR  EDWARD    COKE ig6 

From  a  photograph  by  W; 
National  Portrait  Gallery. 


From  a  photograph  by  Walker  &  Boutall  of  the  portrait  by  C.  Janssen  in  the 
"    ■       '  ■"  '    "  iller 


BRIDGET   CROMWELL  (MRS.  IRETON,  AND   LATER   MRS. 

FLEETWOOD) 200 

From  a  miniature  by  Crosse  at  Windsor  Castle,  by  special  permission  of  Her 
Majesty  the  Queen. 

ALGERNON    SIDNEY 204 

From  the  original  miniature  by  John  Hoskins,  at  Montagu  House,  by  permis- 
sion of  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch. 

CORNET  GEORGE  JOYCE 216 

From  the  original  portrait  at  Chequers  Court,  by  permission  of  Mrs.  Frank- 
land- Russell-Astley. 

GENERAL  HENRY   IRETON t.     228 

From  the  portrait  by  William  Dobson  at  Hinchinbrook  House,  by  permission 
of  the  Earl  of  Sandwich. 

SIR  MARMADUKE   LANGDALE,    FIRST   LORD    LANGDALE    236 
From  a  print  in  the  British  Museum. 

JAMES.  FIRST   DUKE   OF   HAMILTON 244 

From  the  original  portrait  at  Hamilton  Place. 

ARCHIBALD    CAMPBELL,  FIRST   MARQUIS   OF   ARGYLL..     248 
From  the  original  portrait  in  the  collection  of  the  Marquis  of  Lothian  at 

Newbattle  Abbey,  Dalkeith. 

THE   TRIAL   OF   CHARLES    I  264 

From  Clarendon's  "  History  of  the  Civil  War,"  in  the  British  Museum. 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facingpage 


JOHN   BRADSHAW 268 

From   Clarendon's    "  History  of  the  Civil   War,"  in   the  Hope  collection, 
Bodleian  Library,  by  permission  of  the  University  of  Oxford. 

CHARLES  I 272 

From  a  carbon  print  by  Braun,  Clement  &  Co.  of  the  original  portrait  by 
Van  Dyck  in  the  Louvre  (detail). 

JAMES   BUTLER,   TWELFTH   EARL  AND  FIRST  DUKE  OF 

ORMONDE 284 

From  a  pastel  portrait  by   Sir  Peter  Lely  in  the  Irish   National   Portrait 
Gallery,  by  permission  of  the  Director. 

DAVID  LESLIE,  FIRST  LORD  NEWARK 304 

From  a  print  in  the  British  Museum  of  a  portrait  by  Sir  Peter  Lely,  in  the 
collection  of  the  Duke  of  Hamilton. 

GENERAL  JOHN  LAMBERT 308 

From    the   original   portrait    at    Chequers   Court,    by   permission   of  Mrs. 
Frankland-Russell-Astley. 

MAJOR-GENERAL  CHARLES  FLEETWOOD 316 

From  a  miniature  on  ivory  in  the  collection  of  Sir  Richard  Tangye. 

GENERAL  GEORGE  MONK,  FIRST  DUKE  OF  ALBEMARLE    324 
From  a  miniature  by  S.  Cooper  at  Windsor  Castle,  by  special  permission  of 
Her  Majesty  the  Queen. 

MASK    OF    OLIVER    CROMWELL,    SAID    TO    HAVE    BEEN 

TAKEN  DURING  LIFE 332 

From  the  collection  of  Mrs.  Frankland-Russell-Astley  at  Chequers  Court. 

JOHN    MILTON 356 

From  the  original  miniature  by  Samuel  Cooper  at  Montagu  House,  by  per- 
,  of  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch. 


RICHARD   CROMWELL 368 

From  a  miniature  by  J.  Hoskins  at  Windsor  Castle,  by  special  permission 
of  Her  Majesty  the  Queen. 

HENRY   CROMWELL   376 

From  the  portrait  at   Chequers  Court,  by  permission  of   Mrs.   Frankland- 
Russell-Astley. 

JOHN   THURLOE,    SECRETARY   TO    OLIVER   CROMWELL    388 
From  the  portrait  at   Chequers   Court,  by  permission  of  Mrs.   Frankland- 
Russell-Astley. 


GEORGE   FOX 


Drawn  by  George  T.  Tobin  from  the  original  portrait  by  Sir  Peter  Lely  at 
Swarthmore  College. 


SAMUEL  DESBOROUGH 

From  the  original  portrait  in  possession  of  Miss  Disbrowe. 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facingpage 
ELIZABETH    CROMWELL,  DAUGHTER    OF    SIR    THOMAS 
STEWARD    OF    ELY,  WIFE    OF    ROBERT    CROMWELL, 
AND  MOTHER  OF   OLIVER   CROMWELL 428 

From  the  original  portrait  at  Chequers  Court,   by  permission  of  Mrs,  Frank- 
land-Russell-Astley. 

JOHN  CLAYPOLE 430 

From  the  portrait  at   Chequers  Court,   by  permission  of  Mrs.   Frankland- 
Russell-Astley. 


CARDINAL  JULES  MAZARIN 444 

From  a  carbon  print  by  Braun,  Clement  &  Co.  of  the  portrait  by  Phillipe  de 
Champaigne  at  ChanliUy. 

MARY  CROMWELL  (LADY  FAUCONBERG) 454 

From  the  original  portrait  by  Cornelius  Janssen  at  Chequers  Court,  by  per- 
mission of  Mrs.  Frankland-Russell-Astley. 

FRANCES  CROMWELL    (MRS.    RICH,    AFTERWARD  LADY 

RUSSELL) 460 

From  the  original  portrait  by  John   Riley,  by  permission  of  the  Rev.   T. 
Cromwell  Bush. 

ELIZABETH  CROMWELL  (MRS.  CLAYPOLE) 464 

From  a  miniature  by  Crosse  at  Windsor  Castle,   by  special  permission   of 
Her  Majesty  the  Queen. 

OLIVER  CROMWELL  AT  THE  AGE  OF  FIFTY-ONE 468 

Drawn  by  George  T.  Tobin  from  the  portrait  by  Sir  Peter  Lely  in  the  Pitti 
Gallery,  Florence. 


OLIVER    CROMWELL 


THE  I 

iSOUL  DIERS^ 

^        Poeket  Bible  :        | 

*|  Contaiulng  the  moftCif not  all)thorc  ^ 

i  places   contained    in  holy  Scripture,  l<3> 

'®g  which  doc  {hew  the  qualifications  of  hts  |3> 

^  inner  man,  that  is  a  fit  Souldter  to  fight  |3> 

"^^  the  Lor<3s  Battels,  bcth  before  he  fight,  ^ 

'^i  inthefight.andafccrthcfigiit;  ^ 

J|  Which  Scriotures  are  reduced  to  (e- 1* 

,j^  vcrall  heads,  and  fitly  applyed  to  the  5* 

tjji  Sooldiers  fevcrall  occafion?,  and  fo  may  '^ 

^M.  Tupply  the  tt'ant  of  the  whole  Bible-,  ^ 

^1  M'hich  a  Souldicr  cannot  conveniently  W' 

^  cavry  about  him:  ^ 

•©1^  And  may  bee  alfo  ufefull  for  any  ^ 

«|      Chriftian  to  meditate  upon,  no\sria      |_ 
<S,  thi;  mifti-abk  time  cf  Wane.  y'^ 

^f      Imprimatur,      £<!/?».  Calamp      |» 

<©S  Jc/!i8.  This  Book  of  the  Law  flnll  not  rfcpait  out  S 
^§      of  tliy  moutIi,but  thou  flnlt  mcditstc  tlicrcin  Jay  W^ 
^     and  night,  tint  tlioti  nuift  obfcn-c  tc  doeaccoi-  ^O 
^     dlngtoailthitis-wyttcn  therein, for  tlicntlioM  |j<j> 
**     llult  mikc  thy  way  proQ>crous,  and  havC  gooi'-  ipw 

<4  ^ • f' 

•4     Printed  at  Ijmdon  by  C£,  and  iLW.  for     "iP* 
4    %:3^«^-C-   1^43.  §> 


TITLE-PAGE    OF   THE    SOLDIERS'  POCKET-BIBLE, 
COPY  OF  WHICH  WAS   CARRIED    BY  EVERY 
SOLDIER   IN   CROMWELL'S   ARMY. 


OLIVER    CROMWELL 


PROLOGUE 


THE  figure  of  Cromwell  has  emerged  from  the 
floating  mists  of  time  in  many  varied  semblances, 
from  blood-stained  and  hypocritical  usurper  up  to 
transcendental  hero  and  the  liberator  of  mankind.  The 
contradictions  of  his  career  all  come  over  again  in  the 
fluctuations  of  his  fame.  He  put  a  king  to  death,  but 
then  he  broke  up  Parliament  after  Parliament.  He 
led  the  way  in  the  violent  suppression  of  bishops,  he 
trampled  on  Scottish  Presbytery,  and  set  up  a  state 
system  of  his  own ;  yet  he  is  the  idol  of  voluntary  con- 
gregations and  the  free  churches.  He  had  little  com- 
prehension of  that  government  by  discussion  which  is 
now  counted  the  secret  of  liberty.  No  man  that  ever 
lived  was  less  of  a  pattern  for  working  those  constitu- 
tional charters  that  are  the  favorite  guarantees  of 
public  rights  in  our  century.  His  rule  was  the  rule 
of  the  sword.  Yet  his  name  stands  first,  half  warrior, 
half  saint,  in  the  calendar  of  English-speaking  democ- 
racy. 

A  foreign  student  has  said  that  the  effect  that  a 
written  history  is  capable  of  producing  is  nowhere  seen 
more  strongly  than  in  Clarendon's  story  of  the  Rebel- 
lion.    The  view  of  the  event  and  of  the  most  conspic- 


2  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

uo'js  actors  was,  for;  many  generations  fixed  by  that 
famous  Avork. '  Not' always  accurate  in  every  detail, 
<;nd  hardly'pretendjrig;  tb  be  impartial,  yet  it  presented 
the  great  drama  with'  a*  living  vigor,  a  breadth,  a  grave 
ethical  air,  that  made  a  profound  and  lasting  impres- 
sion. To  Clarendon  Cromwell  was  a  rebel  and  a 
tyrant,  the  creature  of  personal  ambition,  using  relig- 
ion for  a  mask  of  selfish  and  perfidious  designs.  For 
several  generations  the  lineaments  of  Oliver  thus  por- 
trayed were  undisturbed  in  the  mind  of  Europe.  After 
the  conservative  of  the  seventeenth  century  came  the 
greater  conservative  of  the  eighteenth.  Burke,  who 
died  almost  exactly  two  centuries  after  Cromwell  was 
born,  saw  in  him  one  of  the  great  bad  men  of  the  old 
stamp,  like  Medici  at  Florence,  like  Petrucci  at  Siena, 
who  exercised  the  power  of  the  state  by  force  of  char- 
acter and  by  personal  authority.  Cromwell's  virtues, 
says  Burke,  were  at  least  some  correctives  of  his  crimes. 
His  government  was  military  and  despotic,  yet  it  was 
regular;  it  was  rigid,  yet  it  was  no  savage  tyranny. 
Ambition  suspended  but  did  not  wholly  suppress  the 
sentiment  of  religion  and  the  love  of  an  honorable 
name.  Such  was  Burke's  modification  of  the  dark 
colors  of  Clarendon.  As  time  went  on,  opinion  slowly 
widened.  By  the  end  of  the  first  quarter  of  this  cen- 
tury reformers  like  Godwin,  though  they  could  not 
forgive  Cromwell's  violence  and  what  they  thought 
his  apostacy  from  old  principles  and  old  allies,  and 
though  they  had  no  sympathy  with  the  biblical  religion 
that  was  the  mainspring  of  his  life,  yet  they  were  in- 
clined to  place  him  among  the  few  excellent  pioneers 
that  have  swayed  a  scepter,  and  they  almost  brought 
themselves  to  adopt  the  glowing  panegyrics  of  Milton. 
The  genius  and  diligence  of  Carlyle,  aided  by  the 
firm    and    manly    stroke    of    Macaulay,    have    finally 


PROLOGUE  3 

shaken  down  the  Clarendonian  tradition.  The  re- 
action has  now  gone  far.  Cromwell,  we  are  told  by 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  living  political  critics,  was 
about  the  greatest  human  force  ever  directed  to  a 
moral  purpose,  and  in  that  sense  about  the  greatest  man 
that  ever  trod  the  scene  of  history.  Another  powerful 
writer,  of  a  different  school,  holds  that  Oliver  stands 
out  among  the  very  few  men  in  all  history  who,  after 
overthrowing  an  ancient  system  of  government,  have 
proved  themselves  with  an  even  greater  success  to  be 
constructive  and  conservative  statesmen.  Then  comes 
the  honored  historian  who  has  devoted  the  labors  of  a 
life  to  this  intricate  and  difficult  period,  and  his  verdict 
is  the  other  way.  Oliver's  negative  work  endured, 
says  Gardiner,  while  his  constructive  work  vanished; 
and  his  attempts  to  substitute  for  military  rule  a  better 
and  surer  order  were  no  more  than  "'a  tragedy,  a  glor- 
ious tragedy."  As  for  those  impatient  and  impor- 
tunate deifications  of  Force,  Strength,  Violence,  Will, 
which  only  show  how  easily  hero-worship  may  glide 
into  effrontery,  of  them  I  need  say  nothing.  History, 
after  all,  is  something  besides  praise  and  blame.  To 
seek  measure,  equity,  and  balance  is  not  necessarily 
the  sign  of  a  callous  heart  and  a  mean  understanding. 
For  the  thirst  after  broad  classifications  works  havoc 
with  truth ;  and  to  insist  upon  long  series  of  unqualified 
clenchers  in  history  and  biography  only  ends  in  con- 
fusing questions  that  are  separate,  in  distorting  per- 
spective, in  exaggerating  proportions,  and  in  falsify- 
ing the  past  for  the  sake  of  some  spurious  edification 
of  the  present. 

Of  the  historic  sense  it  has  been  truly  said  that  its 
rise  indicates  a  revolution  as  great  as  any  produced  by 
the  modern  discov^eries  of  physical  science.  It  is  not, 
for  instance,  easy  for  us  who  are  vain  of  living  in  an 


4  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

age  of  reason,  to  enter  into  the  mind  of  a  mystic  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  Yet  by  virtue  of  that  sense  even 
those  who  have  moved  furthest  away  in  behef  and 
faith  from  the  books  and  the  symbols  that  Hghted  the 
inmost  soul  of  Oliver,  should  still  be  able  to  do  jus- 
tice to  his  free  and  spacious  genius,  his  high  heart,  his 
singleness  of  mind.  On  the  political  side  it  is  the 
same.  It  may  be  that  "a  man's  noblest  mistake  is  to 
be  before  his  time."  Yet  historic  sense  forbids  us  to 
judge  results  by  motive,  or  real  consequences  by  the 
ideals  and  intentions  of  the  actor  who  produced  them. 
The  first  act  of  the  revolutionary  play  cannot  be 
understood  until  the  curtain  has  fallen  on  the  fifth. 
To  ignore  the  Restoration  is  to  misjudge  the  Rebellion. 
France,  a  century  and  more  after,  marched  along  a 
blood-stained  road  in  a  period  that  likewise  extended 
not  very  much  over  twenty  years,  from  the  calling  of 
the  States-General,  in  1789,  through  consulate  and 
empire  to  Moscow  and  to  Leipsic.  Only  time  tells 
all.  In  a  fine  figure  the  sublimest  of  Roman  poets 
paints  the  struggle  of  warrior  hosts  upon  the  plain, 
the  gleam  of  burnished  arms,  the  fiery  wheeling  of  the 
horse,  the  charges  that  thunder  on  the  ground.  But 
yet,  he  says,  there  is  a  tranquil  spot  on  the  far-off 
heights  whence  all  the  scouring  legions  seem  as  if  they 
stood  still,  and  all  the  glancing  flash  and  confusion  of 
battle  as  though  it  were  blended  in  a  sheet  of  steady 
flame.^  So  history  makes  the  shifting  things  seem 
fixed.  Posterity  sees  a  whole.  With  the  states- 
man in  revolutionary  times  it  is  different.  Through 
decisive  moments  that  seemed  only  trivial,  and  by 
critical  turns  that  seemed  indifferent,  he  explores  dark 
and  untried  paths,  groping  his  way  through  a  jungle 
of  vicissitude,  ambush,  strategem,  expedient;  a  match 

1  Lucretius,  ii.  323-332. 


PROLOGUE  5 

for  Fortune  in  all  her  moods;  lucky  if  now  and  again 
he  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  polar  star.  Such  is  the  case 
of  Cromwell.  The  effective  revolution  came  thirty 
years  later,  and  when  it  came  it  was  no  Cromwellian 
revolution;  it  was  aristocratic  and  not  democratic, 
secular  and  not  religious,  parliamentary  and  not  mili- 
tary, the  substitution  for  the  old  monarchy  of  a  terri- 
torial oligarchy  supreme  alike  in  Lords  and  Commons. 

Nor  is  it  true  to  say  that  the  church  became  a  mere 
shadow  of  its  ancient  form  after  the  Restoration.  For 
two  centuries,  besides  her  vast  influence  as  a  purely 
ecclesiastical  organization,  the  church  was  supreme 
in  the  universities, — those  powerful  organs  in  English 
national  life, — she  was  supreme  in  the  public  schools 
that  fed  them.  The  directing  classes  of  the  country 
were  almost  exclusively  her  sons.  The  land  was 
theirs.  Dissidents  were  tolerated;  they  throve  and 
prospered;  but  they  had  little  more  share  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  nation  than  if  Cromwell  had  never 
been  born.  To  perceive  all  this,  to  perceive  that  Crom- 
well did  not  succeed  in  turning  aside  the  destinies  of 
his  people  from  the  deep  courses  that  history  had  pre- 
appointed for  them,  into  the  new  channels  which  he 
fondly  hoped  that  he  was  tracing  with  the  point  of  his 
victorious  sword,  implies  no  blindness  either  to  the 
gifts  of  a  brave  and  steadfast  man,  or  to  the  grandeur 
of  some  of  his  ideals  of  a  good  citizen  and  a  well-gov- 
erned state. 

It  is  hard  to  deny  that  wherever  force  was  useless 
Cromwell  failed ;  or  that  his  example  would  often  lead 
in  what  modern  opinion  firmly  judges  to  be  false  direc- 
tions; or  that  it  is  in  Milton  and  Bunyan  rather  than 
in  Cromwell  that  we  seek  what  was  deepest,  loftiest, 
and  most  abiding  in  Puritanism.  We  look  to  its 
apostles  rather  than  its  soldier.     Yet  Oliver's  large- 


6  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

ness  of  aim,  his  freedom  of  spirit,  and  the  energy  that 
comes  of  a  free  spirit;  the  presence  of  a  burning  Hght 
in  his  mind,  though  the  Hght  to  our  later  times  may 
have  grown  dim  or  gone  out ;  his  good  faith,  his  valor, 
his  constancy,  have  stamped  his  name,  in  spite  of  some 
exasperated  acts  that  it  is  pure  sophistry  to  justify, 
upon  the  imagination  of  men  over  all  the  vast  area  of 
the  civilized  world  where  the  English  tongue  prevails. 
The  greatest  names  in  history  are  those  who,  in  a  full 
career  and  amid  the  turbid  extremities  of  political 
action,  have  yet  touched  closest  and  at  most  points  the 
wide,  ever-standing  problems  of  the  world,  and  the 
things  in  which  men's  interest  never  dies.  Of  this  far- 
shining  company  Cromwell  was  surely  one. 


BOOK  ONE 


II    itJUItiMm 


Book  ®ne 

CHAPTER  I 

EARLY    LIFE 

I  WAS  by  birth  a  gentleman,  living  neither  in  any 
considerable  height  nor  yet  in  obscurity."  Such 
was  Cromwell's  account  of  himself.  He  was  the  de- 
scendant in  the  third  degree  of  Richard  Cromwell, 
whose  earlier  name  was  Richard  Williams,  a  Welsh- 
man from  Glamorganshire,  nephew  and  one  of  the 
agents  of  Thomas  Cromwell,  the  iron-handed  servant 
of  Henry  VHI,  the  famous  sledge-hammer  of  the 
monks.  Cromwell's  sister  was  married  to  Morgan 
Williams,  the  father  of  Richard,  but  when  the  greater 
name  was  assumed  seems  uncertain.  In  the  deed  of 
jointure  on  his  marriage  the  future  Protector  is  de- 
scribed as  Oliver  Cromwell  alias  Williams.  Hence 
those  who  insist  that  what  is  called  a  Celtic  strain  is 
needed  to  give  fire  and  speed  to  an  English  stock,  find 
Cromwell  a  case  in  point. 

What  is  certain  is  that  he  was  in  favor  with 
Thomas  Cromwell  and  with  the  king  after  his  patron's 
fall,  and  that  Henry  VHI  gave  him,  among  other 
spoils  of  the  church,  the  revenues  and  manors  belong- 
ing to  the  priory  of  Hinchinbrook  and  the  abbey  of 
Ramsey,  in  Huntingdonshire  and  the  adjacent  coun- 
ties. Sir  Richard  left  a  splendid  fortune  to  an  eldest 
son,  whom  Elizabeth  made  Sir  Henry.  This,  the 
Golden  Knight,  so  called  from  his  profusion,  was  the 

9 


lo  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

father  of  Sir  Oliver,  a  worthy  of  a  prodigal  turn  like 
himself.  Besides  Sir  Oliver,  the  Golden  Knight  had 
a  younger  son,  Robert,  and  Robert  in  turn  became  the 
father  of  the  mighty  Oliver  of  history,  who  was  thus 
the  great-grandson  of  the  first  Richard. 

Robert  Cromwell  married  (1591)  a  young  widow, 
Elizabeth  Lynn.  Her  maiden  name  of  Steward  is 
only  interesting  because  some  of  her  stock  boasted 
that  if  one  should  climb  the  genealogical  tree  high 
enough,  it  would  be  found  that  Elizabeth  Steward  and 
the  royal  Stewarts  of  Scotland  had  a  common  ancestor. 
Men  are  pleased  when  they  stumble  on  one  of  Fortune's 
tricks,  as  if  the  regicide  should  himself  turn  out  to 
be  even  from  a  far-off  distance  of  the  kingly  line.  The 
better  opinion  seems  to  be  that  Steward  was  not  Stew- 
art at  all,  but  only  Norfolk  Styward. 

The  story  of  Oliver's  early  life  is  soon  told.  He 
was  born  at  Huntingdon  on  April  25,  1599.  His 
parents  had  ten  children  in  all ;  Oliver  was  the  only 
son  who  survived  infancy.  Homer  has  a  line 
that  has  been  taken  to  mean  that  it  is  bad  for  char- 
acter to  grow  up  an  only  brother  among  many  sisters ; 
but  Cromwell  at  least  showed  no  default  in  either  the 
bold  and  strong  or  the  tender  qualities  that  belong  to 
manly  natures.  He  was  sent  to  the  public  school  of 
the  place.  The  master  was  a  learned  and  worthy 
divine,  the  preacher  of  the  word  of  God  in  the  town  of 
Huntingdon;  the  author  of  some  classic  comedies;  of 
a  proof  in  two  treatises  of  the  well-worn  proposition 
that  the  Pope  is  Antichrist;  and  of  a  small  volume 
called  "The  Theater  of  God's  Judgments,"  in  which 
he  collects  from  sacred  and  profane  story  examples  of 
the  justice  of  God  against  notorious  sinners  both  great 
and  small,  but  more  especially  against  those  high  per- 
sons of  the  world  whose  power  insolently  bursts  the 


EARLY  LIFE  ii 

barriers  of  mere  human  justice.  The  youth  of  Hunt- 
ingdon therefore  drank  of  the  pure  milk  of  the  stern 
word  that  bade  men  bind  their  kings  in  chains  and 
their  nobles  in  links  of  iron. 

How  long  Oliver  remained  under  Dr.  Beard,  what 
proficiency  he  attained  in  study  and  how  he  spent  his 
spare  time,  we  do  not  know,  and  it  is  idle  to  guess. 
In  1616  (April  23),  at  the  end  of  his  seventeenth  year, 
he  went  to  Cambridge  as  a  fellow-commoner  of  Sidney 
Sussex  College.  Dr.  Samuel  Ward,  the  master,  was 
an  excellent  and  conscientious  man  and  had  taken  part 
in  the  version  of  the  Bible  so  oddly  associated  with  the 
name  of  King  James  I.  He  took  part  also  in  the 
famous  Synod  of  Dort  (1619),  where  Calvinism 
triumphed  over  Arminianism.  His  college  was  de- 
nounced by  Archbishop  Laud  as  one  of  the  nurseries  of 
Puritanism,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  in  what  sort  of 
atmosphere  Cromwell  passed  those  years  of  life  in 
which  the  marked  outlines  of  character  are  unalterably 
drawn. 

After  little  more  than  a  year's  residence  in  the  uni- 
versity, he  lost  his  father  (June,  1617).  Whether  he 
went  back  to  college  we  cannot  tell,  nor  whether  there 
is  good  ground  for  the  tradition  that  after  quitting 
Cambridge  he  read  law  at  Lincoln's  Inn.  It  was  the 
fashion  for  young  gentlemen  of  the  time,  and  Crom- 
well may  have  followed  it.  There  is  no  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  Cromwell  was  ever  the  stuff  of  which  the 
studious  are  made.  Some  faint  evidence  may  be 
traced  of  progress  in  mathematics ;  that  he  knew  some 
of  the  common  tags  of  Greek  and  Roman  history ;  that 
he  was  able  to  hold  his  own  in  surface  discussion  on  jur- 
isprudence. In  later  days  when  he  was  Protector,  the 
Dutch  ambassador  says  that  they  carried  on  their  con- 
versation together  in  Latin.    But,  according  to  Burnet, 


12  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

Oliver's  Latin  was  vicious  and  scanty,  and  of  other 
foreign  tongues  he  had  none.  There  is  a  story  about 
his  arguing  upon  regicide  from  the  principles  of  Mari- 
ana and  Buchanan,  but  he  may  be  assumed  to  have 
derived  these  principles  from  his  own  mother-wit,  and 
not  to  have  needed  text-books.  He  had  none  of  the 
tastes  or  attainments  that  attract  us  in  many  of  those 
who  either  fought  by  his  side  or  who  fought  against 
him.  The  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  was  never 
breathed  upon  him.  Cromwell  had  none  of  the  fine 
judgment  in  the  arts  that  made  King  Charles  one  of 
the  most  enthusiastic  and  judicious  collectors  of  paint- 
ings known  in  his  time.  We  cannot  think  of  Cromwell 
as  Sir  John  Eliot,  beguiling  his  heavy  hours  in  the 
Tower  with  Plato  and  Seneca;  or  Hampden,  ponder- 
ing Davila's  new  "History  of  the  Civil  Wars  in 
France" ;  or  Milton  forsaking  the  "quiet  air  of  delight- 
ful studies"  to  play  a  man's  part  in  the  confusions  of 
his  time;  or  Falkland,  in  whom  the  Oxford  men  in 
Clarendon's  immortal  picture  "found  such  an  im- 
menseness  of  wit  and  such  a  solidity  of  judgment,  so 
infinite  a  fancy  bound  in  by  a  most  logical  ratioci- 
nation, such  a  vast  knowledge  that  he  was  not  ignorant 
in  anything,  yet  such  an  excessive  humility  as  if  he  had 
known  nothing,  that  they  frequently  resorted  and  dwelt 
with  him,  as  in  a  college  situated  in  a  purer  air." 
Cromwell  was  of  another  type.  Bacon  said  about  Sir 
Edward  Coke  that  he  conversed  with  books  and  not 
with  men,  who  are  the  best  books.  Of  Cromwell  the 
reverse  is  true ;  for  him  a  single  volume  comprehended 
all  literature,  and  that  volume  was  the  Bible. 

More  satisfactory  than  guesses  at  the  extent  of 
Oliver's  education  is  a  sure  glimpse  of  his  views 
upon  education,  to  be  found  in  his  advice  when  the 
time  came,  about  an  eldest  son  of  his  own.     "I  would 


EARLY  LIFE  13 

have  him  mind  and  understand  business,"  he  says. 
"Read  a  little  history;  study  the  mathematics  and  cos- 
mography. These  are  good  with  subordination  to 
the  things  of  God.  .  .  .  These  fit  for  public  services, 
for  which  man  is  born.  Take  heed  of  an  unactive, 
vain  spirit.  Recreate  yourself  with  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh's  History;  it's  a  body  of  History,  and  will  add 
much  more  to  your  understanding  than  fragments  of 
story."  "The  tree  of  knowledge,"  Oliver  exhorts 
Richard  to  bear  in  mind,  "is  not  literal  or  speculative, 
but  inward,  transforming  the  mind  to  it." 

These  brief  hints  of  his  riper  days  make  no  bad  text 
for  an  educational  treatise.  Man  is  born  for  public 
service,  and  not  to  play  the  amateur;  he  should  mind 
and  understand  business,  and  beware  of  an  unactive 
spirit;  the  history  of  mankind  is  to  be  studied  as  a 
whole,  not  in  isolated  fragments;  true  knowledge  is 
not  literal  or  speculative,  but  such  as  builds  up  coher- 
ent character  and  grows  a  part  of  it,  in  conscious 
harmony  with  the  Supreme  Unseen  Powers.  All  this 
is  not  full  nor  systematic  like  Ascham  or  Bacon  or 
Milton  or  Locke;  but  Oliver's  hints  have  the  root  of 
the  matter  in  them,  and  in  this  deep  sense  of  education 
he  was  himself  undoubtedly  bred. 

His  course  is  very  obscure  until  we  touch  solid 
ground  in  what  is  usually  one  of  the  most  decisive 
acts  of  life.  In  August,  1620,  being  his  twenty-sec- 
ond year,  he  was  married  to  Elizabeth  Bourcliier  at 
the  Church  of  St.  Giles  in  Cripplegate,  London,  where, 
fifty-four  years  later,  John  Milton  was  buried.  Her 
father  was  a  merchant  on  Tower  Hill,  the  owner  of 
land  at  Felsted  in  Essex,  a  knight,  and  a  connection 
of  the  family  of  Hampden.  Elizabeth  Cromwell 
seems  to  have  been  a  simple  and  affectionate  character, 
full  of  homely  solicitudes,  intelligent,  modest,  thrifty. 


14  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

and  gentle,  but  taking  no  active  share  in  the  fierce 
stress  of  her  husband's  Hfe.  Marriage  and  time  hide 
strange  surprises ;  the  Httle  bark  floats  on  a  summer 
bay,  until  a  tornado  suddenly  sweeps  it  out  to  sea  and 
washes  it  over  angry  waters  to  the  w'orld's  end.  When 
all  was  over,  and  Charles  II  had  come  back  to  White- 
hall, a  paper  reached  the  Council  Office,  and  was 
docketed  by  the  Secretary  of  State,  "Old  Mrs.  Crom- 
well, Noll's  wife's  petition."  The  sorrowful  woman 
was  willing  to  swear  that  she  had  never  intermeddled 
with  any  of  those  public  transactions  which  had  been 
prejudicial  to  his  late  or  present  Majesty,  and  she  was 
especially  sensitive  of  the  unjust  imputation  of  detain- 
ing jewels  belonging  to  the  king,  for  she  knew  of  none 
such.     But  this  was  not  for  forty  years. 

The  stories  about  Oliver's  wicked  youth  deserve  not 
an  instant's  notice.  In  any  case  the  ferocity  of  party 
passion  was  certain  to  invent  them.  There  is  no  cor- 
roborative evidence  for  them.  Wherever  detail  can 
be  tested,  the  thing  crumbles  away,  like  the  more  harm- 
less nonsense  about  his  putting  a  crown  on  his  head  at 
private  theatricals,  and  having  a  dream  that  he  should 
one  day  be  King  of  England ;  or  about  a  congenial 
figure  of  the  devil  being  represented  on  the  tapestry 
over  the  door  of  the  room  in  which  Oliver  was  born. 
There  is,  indeed,  one  of  his  letters  in  which  anybody 
who  wishes  to  believe  that  in  his  college  days  Oliver 
drank,  swore,  gambled,  and  practised  "uncontrolled 
debaucheries,"  may  if  he  chooses  find  what  he  seeks. 
"You  know  what  my  manner  of  life  hath  been,"  he 
writes  to  his  cousin,  the  wife  of  Oliver  St.  John,  in  1638. 
"Oh,  I  lived  in  darkness  and  hated  light;  I  was  the 
chief  of  sinners.  This  is  true ;  I  hated  Godliness,  yet 
God  had  mercy  on  me." 

Seriously  to  argue  from  such  language  as  this  that 


EARLY  LIFE  15 

Cromwell's  early  life  was  vicious,  is  as  monstrous  as 
it  would  be  to  argue  that  Bunyan  was  a  reprobate  from 
the  remorseful  charges  of  "Grace  Abounding."  From 
other  evidence  we  know  that  Cromwell  did  not  escape, 
nor  was  it  possible  that  he  should,  from  those  painful 
struggles  with  religious  gloom  that  at  one  time  or 
another  confront  nearly  every  type  of  mind  endowed 
with  spiritual  faculty.  They  have  found  intense  ex- 
pression in  many  keys  from  Augustine  down  to  Cow- 
per's  "Castaway.''  Some  they  leave  plunged  in  gulfs 
of  perpetual  despair,  while  stronger  natures  emerge 
from  the  conflict  with  all  the  force  that  is  in  them  puri- 
fied, exalted,  fortified,  illumined.  Oliver  was  of  the 
melancholic  temperament,  and  the  misery  was  heavy 
while  it  lasted.  But  the  instinct  of  action  was  born  in 
him,  and  when  the  summons  came  he  met  it  with  all 
the  vigor  of  a  strenuous  faith  and  an  unclouded  soul. 

After  his  marriage  Cromwell  returned  to  his  home 
at  Huntingdon,  and  there  for  eleven  years  took  care 
of  the  modest  estate  that  his  father  had  left.  For  the 
common  tradition  of  Oliver  as  the  son  of  a  brewer 
there  is  nothing  like  a  sure  foundation.  We  may  ac- 
cept or  reject  it  with  tolerable  indifference.  Robert 
Cromwell  undoubtedly  got  his  living  out  of  the  land, 
though  it  is  not  impossible  that  he  may  have  done  occa- 
sional brewing  for  neighbors  less  conveniently  placed 
for  running  water.  The  elder  branch  of  his  family 
meanwhile  slowly  sank  down  in  the  world,  and  in  1627 
Hinchinbrook  was  sold  to  one  of  the  house  of  Mon- 
tagu, father  of  the  admiral  who  in  days  to  come  helped 
to  bring  back  Charles  II,  and  an  uncle  of  that  Earl  of 
Manchester  by  whose  side  Oliver  was  drawn  into 
such  weighty  dispute  when  the  storms  of  civil  war 
arose.  Decline  of  family  interest  did  not  impair 
Oliver's   personal   position   in   this   town,    for   in   the 


i6  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

beginning  of  1628  he  was  chosen  to  represent  Hunting- 
don in  ParHament. 

This  was  the  third  Parhament  of  the  reign,  the  great 
Parhament  that  fought  and  carried  the  Petition  of 
Right,  the  famous  enactment  which  recites  and  con- 
firms the  old  instruments  against  forced  loan  or  tax; 
which  forbids  arrest  or  imprisonment  save  by  due  pro- 
cess of  law,  forbids  the  quartering  of  soldiers  or  sail- 
ors in  men's  houses  against  their  will,  and  shuts  out 
the  tyrannous  decrees  called  by  the  name  of  martial 
law.  Here  the  new  member,  now  in  his  twenty-ninth 
year,  saw  at  their  noble  and  hardy  task  the  first  gener- 
ation of  the  champions  of  the  civil  rights  and  parlia- 
mentary liberties  of  England.  He  saw  the  zealous 
and  high-minded  Sir  John  Eliot,  the  sage  and  intrepid 
Pym,  masters  of  eloquence  and  tactical  resource.  He 
saw  the  first  lawyers  of  the  day — Coke,  now  nearing 
eighty,  but  as  keen  for  the  letter  of  the  law  now  that  it 
was  for  the  people,  as  he  had  been  when  he  took  it  to 
be  on  the  side  of  authority;  Glanvil,  Selden,  "the 
chief  of  men  reputed  in  this  land" — all  conducting  the 
long  train  of  arguments  legal  and  constitutional  for 
old  laws  and  franchises,  with  an  erudition,  an  acute- 
ness,  and  a  weight  as  cogent  as  any  performances  ever 
witnessed  within  the  walls  of  the  Commons  House. 
By  his  side  sat  his  cousin  John  Hampden,  whose 
name  speedily  became,  and  has  ever  since  remained,  a 
standing  symbol  for  civil  courage  and  lofty  love  of 
country.  On  the  same  benches  still  sat  Wentworth, 
in  many  respects  the  boldest  and  most  powerful  politi- 
cal genius  then  in  England,  now  for  the  last  time 
using  his  gifts  of  ardent  eloquence  on  behalf  of  the 
popular  cause. 

All  the  stout-hearted  struggle  of  that  memorable 
twelvemonth    against    tyrannical    innovation    in    civil 


From  the  portrait  by  Sir  Peter  Lely  in  the  collection  of  the  Rev.  T.  Cromwell  Bush. 

ELIZABETH,   DAUGHTER   OF   SIR   JAMES   BOURCHIER, 

AND   WIFE   OF   OLIVER   CROMWELL. 


EARLY  LIFE  17 

things  and  rigorous  reaction  in  things  spiritual  Crom- 
well witnessed,  down  to  the  ever-memorable  scene 
of  English  history  where  Holies  and  Valentine  held 
the  Speaker  fast  down  in  his  chair,  to  assert  the  right 
of  the  House  to  control  its  own  adjournment,  and  to 
launch  Eliot's  resolutions  in  defiance  of  the  king. 
Cromwell's  first  and  only  speech  in  this  Parliament 
was  the  production  of  a  case  in  which  a  reactionary 
bishop  had  backed  up  a  certain  divine  in  preaching  flat 
popery  at  St.  Paul's  Cross,  and  had  forbidden  a  Puri- 
tan reply.  The  Parliament  was  abruptly  dissolved 
(March,  1629)  and  for  eleven  years  no  other  was 
called  together. 

There  is  no  substance  in  the  fable,  though  so  circum- 
stantially related,  that  in  1636  in  company  with  his 
cousin  Hampden,  despairing  of  his  country,  he  took 
his  passage  to  America,  and  that  the  vessel  was  stopped 
by  an  order  in  Council.  All  the  probabilities  are 
against  it,  and  there  is  no  evidence  for  it.  What  is 
credible  enough  is  Clarendon's  story  that  five  years 
later,  on  the  day  when  the  Great  Remonstrance  was 
passed,  Cromwell  whispered  to  Falkland  that  if  it  had 
been  rejected  he  would  have  sold  all  he  had  the  next 
morning,  and  never  have  seen  England  more,  and  he 
knew  there  were  many  other  honest  men  of  the  same 
resolution.  So  near,  the  Royalist  historian  reflects, 
was  this  poor  kingdom  at  that  time  to  its  deliverance. 

His  property  meanwhile  had  been  increased  by  a 
further  bequest  of  land  in  Huntingdon  from  his  uncle 
Richard  Cromwell.  Two  years  after  his  return  from 
Westminster  (1631)  he  sold  his  whole  Huntingdon 
property  for  eighteen  hundred  pounds,  equivalent  to 
between  five  and  six  thousand  to-day.  With  this  cap- 
ital in  hand  he  rented  and  stocked  grazing-lands  at  the 
east  end  of  St.  Ives,  some  five  miles  down  the  river,  and 


1 8  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

here  he  remained  steadily  doing  his  business  and 
watching  the  black  clouds  slowly  rise  on  the  horizon 
of  national  affairs.  Children  came  in  due  order,  nine 
of  them  in  all.  He  went  to  the  parish  church,  "gener- 
ally with  a  piece  of  red  flannel  round  his  neck,  as  he 
was  subject  to  an  inflammation  in  his  throat."  He 
had  his  children  baptized  like  other  people,  and  for  one 
of  them  he  asked  the  vicar,  a  fellow  of  St.  John's  at 
Cambridge,  to  stand  godfather.  He  took  his  part  in 
the  affairs  of  the  place.  At  Huntingdon  his  keen  pub- 
lic spirit  aiVI  blunt  speech  had  brought  him  into 
trouble.  A  new  charter  in  which,  among  other  pro- 
visions, Oliver  was  made  a  borough  justice,  trans- 
formed an  open  and  popular  corporation  into  a  close 
one.  Cromwell  dealt  faithfully  with  those  who  had 
procured  the  change.  The  mayor  and  aldermen  com- 
plained to  the  Privy  Council  of  the  disgraceful  and 
unseemly  speeches  used  to  them  by  him  and  another 
person,  and  one  day  a  messenger  from  the  Council 
carried  the  two  offenders  under  arrest  to  London  ( No- 
vember. 1630).  There  was  a  long  hearing  with  many 
contradictory  asseverations.  We  may  assume  that 
Cromwell  made  a  stout  defense  on  the  merits,  and  he 
appears  to  have  been  discharged  of  blame,  though  he 
admitted  that  he  had  spoken  in  heat  and  passion  and 
begged  that  his  angry  words  might  not  be  remembered 
against  him.  In  1636  he  went  from  St.  Ives  to  Ely, 
his  old  mother  and  unmarried  sisters  keeping  house 
with  him.  This  year  his  maternal  uncle  died  and  left 
to  him  the  residuary  interest  under  his  will.  The 
uncle  had  farmed  the  cathedral  tithes  of  Ely,  as  his 
father  had  farmed  them  before  him,  and  in  this 
position  Oliver  had  succeeded  him.  Ely  was  the  home 
of  Cromwell  and  his  family  until  1647. 


EARLY  LIFE  19 

He  did  not  escape  the  pang  of  bereavement:  his 
eldest  son,  a  youth  of  good  promise,  died  in  1639. 
Long  afterward  Oliver  lying  ill  at  Hampton  Court 
called  for  his  Bible,  and  desired  an  honorable  and 
godly  person  present  to  read  aloud  to  him  a  passage 
from  Philippians :  "Not  that  I  speak  in  respect  of 
want :  for  I  have  learned,  in  whatsoever  state  I  am 
therewith  to  be  content:  I  know  both  how  to  be 
abased,  and  I  know  how  to  abound :  everywhere  and  in 
all  things  I  am  instructed  both  to  be  full  and  to  be 
hungry,  both  to  abound  and  to  suffer  need.  I  can  do 
all  things  through  Christ  which  strengtheneth  me." 
After  the  verses  had  been  read,  'This  scripture,"  said 
Cromwell,  then  nearing  his  own  end,  "did  once  save  my 
life  when  my  eldest  son  died,  which  went  as  a  dagger 
to  my  heart,  indeed  it  did."  It  was  this  spirit,  praised 
in  Milton's  words  of  music  as  his  "faith  and  matchless 
fortitude,"  that  bore  him  through  the  years  of  battle 
and  contention  lying  predestined  in  the  still  sealed 
scroll  before  him. 

Cromwell's  first  surviving  letter  is  evidence  alike 
in  topic  and  in  language  of  the  thoughts  on  which  his 
heart  was  set.  A  lecturer  was  a  man  paid  by  private 
subscribers  to  preach  a  sermon  after  the  official  parson 
had  read  the  service,  and  he  was  usually  a  Puritan. 
Cromwell  presses  a  friend  in  London  for  aid  in  keeping 
up  a  lecturer  in  St.  Ives  ( 1635).  The  best  of  all  good 
works,  he  says,  is  to  provide  for  the  feeding  of  souls. 
"Building  of  hospitals  provides  for  men's  bodies;  to 
build  material  temples  is  judged  a  work  of  piety;  but 
they  that  procure  spiritual  food,  they  that  build  up 
spiritual  temples,  they  are  the  men  truly  charitable, 
truly  pious."  About  the  same  time  (1635)  Oliver's 
kinsman  John  Hampden  was  consulting  his  other  kins- 


20  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

man,  Oliver  St.  John,  as  to  resisting  the  writ  of  ship- 
money.  Laud,  made  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  in 
1633,  was  busy  in  the  preparation  of  a  new  prayer- 
book  for  the  regeneration  of  stubborn  Scotland.  Went- 
worth  was  fighting  his  high-handed  battle  for  a  better 
order  in  Ireland. 


CHAPTER  II 


THE    STATE    AND    ITS    LEADERS 


STUDENTS  of  the  struggle  between  monarchy  and 
ParHament  in  the  seventeenth  century  have  worked 
hard  upon  black-letter;  on  charter,  custom,  franchise, 
tradition,  precedent,  and  prescription,  on  which  the 
Commons  defended  their  privileges  and  the  king  de- 
fended his  prerogatives.  How  much  the  lawyers 
really  founded  their  case  on  the  precedents  for  which 
they  had  ransacked  the  wonderful  collections  of  Sir 
Robert  Cotton,  or  how  far,  on  the  other  hand,  their 
"pedantry''  was  a  mask  for  a  determination  that  in 
their  hearts  rested  on  very  different  grounds,  opens  a 
discussion  into  which  we  need  not  enter  here.  What  the 
elective  element  in  the  old  original  monarchy  amounted 
to,  and  what  the  popular  element  in  the  ancient  deliber- 
ative council  amounted  to;  what  differences  in  power 
and  prerogative  marked  the  office  of  a  king  when  it 
was  filled  by  Angevin,  by  Plantagenet,  or  by  Tudor  j 
how  the  control  of  Parliament  over  legislation  and  tax- 
ation stood  under  the  first  three  Edwards  and  under 
the  last  three  Henrys ;  whether  the  popular  champions 
in  the  seventeenth  century  were  abandoning  both  the 
accustomed  theory  and  the  practice  of  Parliament  from 
Edward  I  to  the  end  of  Elizabeth;  whether  the  real 
conservative  on  the  old  lines  of  the  constitution  was 

21 


22  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

not  King  Charles  himself — all  these  and  the  kindred 
questions,  profoundly  interesting  as  they  are,  fill  little 
space  in  the  story  of  Cromwell.  It  was  not  until  the 
day  of  the  lawyers  and  the  constitutionalists  had 
passed  that  Cromwell's  hour  arrived,  and  "the  meager, 
stale,  forbidding  ways  of  custom,  law,  and  statute" 
vanished  from  men's  thoughts. 

To  a  man  of  Cromwell's  political  mind  the  questions 
were  plain  and  broad,  and  could  be  solved  without 
much  history.  If  the  estates  of  the  crown  no  longer 
sufficed  for  the  public  service,  could  the  king  make 
the  want  good  by  taxing  his  subjects  at  his  own  good 
pleasure?  Or  was  the  charge  to  be  exclusively  im- 
posed by  the  estates  of  the  realm?  Were  the  estates 
of  the  realm  to  have  a  direct  voice  in  naming  agents 
and  officers  of  executive  power,  and  to  exact  a  full 
responsibility  to  themselves  for  all  acts  done  in  the 
name  of  executive  power?  Was  the  freedom  of  the 
subject  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  arbitrary  tribunals,  and 
were  judges  to  be  removable  at  the  king's  pleasure? 
What  was  to  be  done — and  this  came  closest  home  of 
all — to  put  down  cruel  assumptions  of  authority  by  the 
bishops,  to  reform  the  idleness  of  the  clergy,  to  provide 
godly  and  diligent  preachers,  and  sternly  to  set  back 
the  rising  tide  of  popery,  of  vain  ceremonial  devices, 
and  pernicious  Arminian  doctrine?  Such  was  the 
simple  statement  of  the  case  as  it  presented  itself  to 
earnest  and  stirring  men.  Taxation  and  religion  have 
ever  been  the  two  prime  movers  in  human  revolutions ; 
in  the  civil  troubles  in  the  seventeenth  century  both 
these  powerful  factors  were  combined. 


In  more  than  one  important  issue  the  king  undoubt- 
edly had  the  black-letter  upon  his  side,  and  nothing  is 


THE  STATE  AND  ITS  LEADERS        23 

easier  than  to  show  that  in  some  of  the  transactions, 
even  before  actual  resort  to  arms,  the  Commons  defied 
both  letter  and  spirit.  Charles  was  not  an  English- 
man by  birth,  training,  or  temper,  but  he  showed  him- 
self at  the  outset  as  much  a  legalist  in  method  and 
argument  as  Coke,  Selden,  St.  John,  or  any  English- 
man among  them.  It  was  in  its  worst  sense  that  he 
thus  from  first  to  last  played  the  formalist,  and  if  to 
be  a  pedant  is  to  insist  on  applying  a  stiff  theory  to 
fluid  fact,  no  man  ever  deserved  the  name  better. 

Both  king  and  Commons,  however,  were  well  aware 
that  the  vital  questions  of  the  future  could  be  decided 
by  no  appeals  to  an  obscure  and  disputable  past. 
The  manifest  issue  was  whether  prerogative  was  to 
be  the  basis  of  the  government  of  England.  Charles 
held  that  it  had  been  always  so,  and  made  up  his  mind 
that  so  it  should  remain.  He  had  seen  the  Court  of 
Paris,  he  had  lived  for  several  months  in  the  Court  of 
Madrid,  and  he  knew  no  reason  why  the  absolutism  of 
France  and  of  Spain  should  not  flourish  at  Whitehall, 
More  certain  than  vague  influences  such  as  these,  was 
the  rising  tide  of  royalism  in  high  places  in  the  church. 

If  this  was  the  mind  of  Charles,  Pym  and  Hamp- 
den and  their  patriot  friends  were  equally  resolved 
that  the  base  of  government  should  be  in  the  Parlia- 
ment and  in  the  Commons  branch  of  the  Parliament. 
They  claimed  for  Parliament  a  general  competence  in 
making  laws,  granting  money,  levying  taxes,  super- 
vising the  application  of  their  grants,  restricting 
abuses  of  executive  power,  and  holding  the  king's  ser- 
vants answerable  for  what  they  did  or  failed  to  do. 
Beyond  all  this  vast  field  of  activity  and  power,  they 
entered  upon  the  domain  of  the  king  as  head  of  the 
church,  and  England  found  herself  plunged  into  the 
vortex  of  that  religious  excitement  which,  for  a  whole 
century  and  almost  without  a  break,  had  torn  the  Chris- 


24  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

tian  world  and  distracted  Europe  with  bloodshed  and 
clamor  that  shook  thrones,  principalities,  powers,  and 
stirred  the  souls  of  men  to  their  depths. 

This  double  and  deep-reaching  quarrel,  partly  re- 
ligious, partly  political,  Charles  did  not  create.  He 
inherited  it  in  all  its  sharpness  along  with  the  royal 
crown.  In  nearly  every  country  in  Europe  the  same 
battle  between  monarch  and  assembly  had  been  fought, 
and  in  nearly  every  case  the  possession  of  concentrated 
authority  and  military  force,  sometimes  at  the  expense 
of  the  nobles,  sometimes  of  the  burghers,  had  left  the 
monarch  victorious.  Queen  Elizabeth  of  famous 
memory — "we  need  not  be  ashamed  to  call  her  so," 
said  Cromwell — carried  prerogative  at  its  highest.  In 
the  five-and-forty  years  of  her  reign  only  thirteen  ses- 
sions of  Parliament  were  held,  and  it  was  not  until  near 
the  close  of  her  life  that  she  heard  accents  of  serious 
complaint.  Constitutional  history  in  Elizabeth's  time 
— the  momentous  institution  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land alone  excepted — is  a  blank  chapter.  Yet  in  spite 
of  the  subservient  language  that  was  natural  toward 
so  puissant  and  successful  a  ruler  as  Elizabeth,  signs 
were  not  even  then  wanting  that,  when  the  stress  of 
national  peril  should  be  relaxed,  arbitrary  power 
would  no  longer  go  unquestioned.  The  reign  of  James 
was  one  long  conflict.  The  struggle  went  on  for 
twenty  years,  and  for  every  one  of  the  most  obnoxious 
pretensions  and  principles  that  were  afterward  sought 
to  be  established  by  King  Charles,  a  precedent  had 
been  set  by  his  father. 

Neither  the  temperament  with  which  Charles  I  was 
born,  nor  the  political  climate  in  which  he  was  reared, 
promised  a  good  deliverance  from  so  dangerous  a 
situation.  In  the  royal  council-chamber,  in  the  church, 
from   the  judicial   bench, — these   three  great   centers 


THE  STATE  AND  ITS  LEADERS        25 

of  organized  government, — in  all  he  saw  prevailing 
the  same  favor  for  arbitrary  power,  and  from  all  he 
learned  the  same  oblique  lessons  of  practical  statecraft. 
On  the  side  of  religion  his  subjects  noted  things  of 
dubious  omen.  His  mother,  Anne  of  Denmark, 
though  her  first  interests  were  those  of  taste  and  plea- 
sure, was  probably  at  heart  a  Catholic.  His  grand- 
mother, Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  had  been  the  renowned 
representative  and  champion  of  the  Catholic  party  in 
the  two  kingdoms.  From  her  and  her  mother,  Mary 
of  Guise,  Charles  had  in  his  veins  the  blood  of  that 
potent  house  of  Lorraine  who  were  in  church  and  state 
the  standard-bearers  of  the  Catholic  cause  in  France. 
A  few  weeks  after  his  accession  he  married  (May, 
1625)  the  sister  of  the  King  of  France  and  daughter 
of  Henry  of  Navarre.  His  wife,  a  girl  of  fifteen  at 
the  time  of  her  marriage,  was  a  Bourbon  on  one  side 
and  a  Medici  on  the  other,  an  ardent  Catholic,  and  a 
devoted  servant  of  the  Holy  See.  That  Charles  was 
ever  near  to  a  change  of  faith  there  is  no  reason  what- 
ever to  suppose.  But  he  played  with  the  great  con- 
troversy when  the  papal  emissaries  round  the  queen 
drew  him  into  argument,  and  he  was  as  bitterly  averse 
from  the  Puritanic  ideas,  feelings,  and  aspirations  of 
either  England  or  Scotland,  as  Mary  Stuart  had  ever 
been  from  the  doctrines  and  discourses  of  John  Knox. 
It  has  been  said  that  antagonism  between  Charles 
and  his  Parliament  broke  out  at  once  as  a  historical 
necessity.  The  vast  question  may  stand  over,  how  far 
the  working  of  historical  necessity  is  shaped  by  char- 
acter and  motive  in  given  individuals.  Suppose  that 
Charles  had  been  endowed  with  the  qualities  of  Oliver, 
— his  strong  will,  his  active  courage,  his  powerful 
comprehension,  above  all  his  perception  of  immovable 
facts, — how  might  things   have  gone?     Or  suppose 


26  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

Oliver  the  son  of  King  James,  and  that  he  had  in- 
herited such  a  situation  as  confronted  Charles?  In 
either  case  the  English  constitution,  and  the  imitations 
of  it  all  over  the  globe,  might  have  been  run  in  another 
mold.  As  it  was,  Charles  had  neither  vision  nor 
grasp.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  he  was  undone  by 
his  duplicity.  There  are  unluckily  far  too  many  awk- 
ward cases  in  history  where  duplicity  has  come  off  tri- 
umphant. Charles  was  double,  as  a  man  of  inferior 
understanding  would  be  double  who  had  much  studied 
Bacon's  essay  on  Simulation  and  Dissimulation,  with- 
out digesting  it  or  ever  deeply  marking  its  first  sen- 
tence, that  dissimulation  is  but  a  faint  kind  of  policy 
or  wisdom,  for  it  asketh  a  strong  wit  and  a  strong 
heart  to  know  when  to  tell  truth  and  to  do  it ;  therefore 
it  is  the  worst  sort  of  politicians  that  are  the  great  dis- 
semblers. This  pregnant  truth  Charles  never  took 
to  heart.  His  fault — and  no  statesman  can  have  ?. 
worse — was  that  he  never  saw  things  as  they  were. 
He  had  taste,  imagination,  logic,  but  he  was  a  dreamer, 
an  idealist,  and  a  theorizer,  in  which  there  might  have 
been  good  rather  than  evil  if  only  his  dreams,  theories, 
and  ideals  had  not  been  out  of  relation  with  the  hard 
duties  of  a  day  of  storm.  He  was  gifted  with  a  fine 
taste  for  pictures,  and  he  had  an  unaffected  passion 
for  good  literature.  When  he  was  a  captive  he 
devoted  hours  daily  not  only  to  Bishop  Andrewes 
and  the  "Ecclesiastical  Polity"  of  Hooker,  but  to 
Tasso,  Ariosto,  the  "Faerie  Queene,"  and  above  all  to 
Shakspere. 

He  was  not  without  the  more  mechanical  qualities 
of  a  good  ruler :  he  was  attentive  to  business,  method- 
ical, decorous,  as  dignified  as  a  man  can  be  without 
indwelling  moral  dignity,  and  a  thrifty  economist 
meaning   well   by   his   people.     His   manners,    if   not 


THE  STATE  AND  ITS   LEADERS        27 

actually  ungracious,  were  ungenial  and  disobliging. 
"He  was  so  constituted  by  nature,"  said  the  Venetian 
ambassador,  "that  he  never  obliges  anybody  either  by 
word  or  by  act."  In  other  words,  he  was  the  royal 
egotist  without  the  mask.  Of  gratitude  for  service, 
of  sympathy,  of  courage  in  friendship,  he  never 
showed  a  spark.  He  had  one  ardent  and  constant 
sentiment,  his  devotion  to  the  queen. 

One  of  the  glories  of  literature  is  the  discourse  in 
which  the  mightiest  of  French  divines  commemorates 
the  strange  vicissitudes  of  fortune — the  glittering 
exaltation,  the  miseries,  the  daring,  the  fortitude,  and 
the  unshaken  faith  of  the  queen  of  Charles  I.  As  the 
delineation  of  an  individual  it  is  exaggerated  and 
rhetorical,  but  the  rhetoric  is  splendid  and  profound. 
Bossuet,  more  than  a  divine,  was  moralist,  statesman, 
philosopher,  exploring  with  no  mere  abstract  specu- 
lative eye  the  thread  of  continuous  purpose  in  the  his- 
tory of  mankind,  but  using  knowledge,  eloquence,  and 
art  to  mold  the  wills  of  men.  His  defense  of  estab- 
lished order  has  been  called  the  great  spectacle  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  It  certainly  was  one  of  them, 
and  all  save  narrow  minds  will  care  to  hear  how  the 
spectacle  in  England  moved  this  commanding  genius. 

Taking  a  text  that  was  ever  present  to  him,  "Be  wise 
now  therefore,  O  ye  kings :  be  instructed,  ye  judges  of 
the  earth,"  Bossuet  treated  that  chapter  of  history  in 
which  the  life  of  Henrietta  Maria  was  an  episode,  as  a 
lofty  drama  with  many  morals  of  its  own.  "I  am  not 
a  historian,"  he  says,  "to  unfold  the  secrets  of  cabinets, 
or  the  ordering  of  battle-fields,  or  the  interests  of 
parties ;  it  is  for  me  to  raise  myself  above  man,  to  make 
every  creature  tremble  under  the  judgments  of  Al- 
mighty God."  Not  content  with  the  majestic  com- 
monplaces so  eternally  true,  so  inexorably  apt,  yet  so 


28  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

incredulously  heard,  about  the  nothingness  of  human 
pomp  and  earthly  grandeur,  he  extracts  special  lessons 
from  the  calamities  of  the  particular  daughter  of  St. 
Louis  whose  lot  inspired  his  meditations.  What  had 
drawn  these  misfortunes  on  the  royal  house  in  Eng- 
land? Was  it  inborn  libertinism  in  English  character 
that  brought  the  Rebellion  about?  Nay,  he  cries; 
when  we  look  at  the  incredible  facility  with  which 
religion  was  first  overthrown  in  that  country,  then 
restored,  then  overthrown  again,  by  Henry  VIII,  by 
Edward  VI,  by  Mary,  by  Elizabeth,  so  far  from 
finding  the  nation  rebellious,  or  its  Parliament  proud 
or  factious,  we  are  driven  to  reproach  the  English 
people  with  being  only  too  submissive.  For  did  they 
not  place  their  very  faith,  their  consciences,  their  souls, 
under  the  yoke  of  earthly  kings  ?  The  fault  was  with 
the  kings  themselves.  They  it  was  who  taught  the 
nations  that  their  ancient  Catholic  creed  was  a  thing 
to  be  lightly  flung  away.  Subjects  ceased  to  revere 
the  maxims  of  religion  when  they  saw  them  wantonly 
surrendered  to  the  passions  or  the  interests  of  their 
princes.  Then  the  great  orator,  with  a  command  of 
powerful  stroke  upon  stroke  that  Presbyterians  in  their 
war  with  Independents  might  well  have  envied,  drew  a 
picture  of  the  mad  rage  of  the  English  for  disputing 
of  divine  things  without  end,  without  rule,  without 
submission,  men's  minds  falling  headlong  from  ruin 
to  ruin.  Who  could  arrest  the  catastrophe  but  the 
bishops  of  the  church  ?  And  then  turning  to  reproach 
them  as  sternly  as  he  had  reproached  their  royal  mas- 
ters, it  was  the  bishops,  he  exclaimed,  who  had  brought 
to  naught  the  authority  of  their  own  thrones  by  openly 
condemning  all  their  predecessors  up  to  the  very  source 
of  their  consecration,  up  to  St.  Gregory  the  Pope  and 
St.    Augustine    the    missionary    monk.     By    skilfully 


J 


THE  STATE  AND  ITS  LEADERS         29 

worded  contrast  with  these  doings  of  apostate  kings 
and  prelates,  he  glorified  the  zeal  of  Henrietta  Maria; 
boasted  how  many  persons  in  England  had  abjured 
their  errors  under  the  influence  of  her  almoners;  and 
how  the  zealous  shepherds  of  the  afflicted  Catholic 
flock  of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy,  saw  with 
joy  the  glorious  symbols  of  their  faith  restored  in  the 
chapel  of  the  Queen  of  England ;  and  the  persecuted 
church  that  in  other  days  hardly  dared  so  much  as  to 
sigh  or  weep  over  its  past  glory,  now  sang  aloud  the 
song  of  Zion  in  a  strange  land. 

All  this  effulgence  of  words  cannot  alter  the  fact 
that  the  queen  was  the  evil  genius  of  her  husband,  and 
of  the  nation  over  whom  a  perverse  fate  had  appointed 
him  to  rule.  Men  ruefully  observed  that  a  French 
queen  never  brought  happiness  to  England.  To  suffer 
women  of  foreign  birth  and  alien  creed  to  meddle  with 
things  of  state,  they  reflected,  had  ever  produced  griev- 
ous desolation  for  our  realm.  Charles  had  a  fancy  to 
call  her  Marie  rather  than  Henrietta,  and  even  Puri- 
tans had  superstition  enough  to  find  a  bad  omen  in  a 
woman's  name  that  was  associated  with  no  good  luck 
to  England.  Of  the  many  women,  good  and  bad,  who 
have  tried  to  take  part  in  affairs  of  state  from  Cleo- 
patra or  the  Queen  of  Sheba  downward,  nobody  by 
character  or  training  was  ever  worse  fitted  than  the 
wife  of  Charles  I  for  such  a  case  as  that  in  which  she 
found  herself.  Henry  IV,  her  father,  thought  that  to 
change  his  Huguenot  faith  and  go  to  mass  was  an  easy 
price  to  pay  for  the  powerful  support  of  Paris.  Her 
mother  came  of  the  marvelous  Florentine  house  that 
had  given  to  Europe  such  masters  of  craft  as  Cosmo 
and  Lorenzo,  Leo  X  and  Clement  VII,  and  Catherine 
of  the  Bartholomew  massacre.  But  the  queen  had 
none  of  the  depth  of  these  famous  personages.     To 


30  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

her,  alike  as  Catholic  and  as  queen  seated  on  a  shaking 
throne,  the  choice  between  bishop  and  presbyter  within 
a  Protestant  communion  was  matter  for  contemptuous 
indifference.  She  understood  neither  her  husband's 
scruples,  nor  the  motives  of  his  rebellious  adversaries. 
The  sanctity  of  law  and  immemorial  custom,  rights  of 
taxation,  Parliamentary  privilege,  Magna  Charta, 
habeas  corpus,  and  all  the  other  symbols  of  our  civil 
freedom,  were  empty  words  without  meaning  to  her 
petulent  and  untrained  mind.  In  Paris  by  the  side  of 
the  great  ladies  whose  lives  were  passed  in  seditious 
intrigues  against  Richelieu  or  Mazarin,  Henrietta 
Maria  would  have  been  in  her  native  element.  She 
would  have  delighted  in  all  the  intricacies  of  the  web 
of  fine-spun  conspiracy  in  which  Maria  de'  Medici,  her 
mother,  and  Anne  of  Austria,  hex  sister-in-law,  and 
Mme.  de  Chevreuse,  her  close  friend  and  comrade,  first 
one  and  then  the  other  spent  their  restless  days.  Hab- 
its and  qualities  that  were  mischievous  enough  even 
in  the  galleries  of  the  Louvre,  in  the  atmosphere  of 
Westminster  and  Whitehall  were  laden  with  immedi- 
ate disaster.  In  intrepidity  and  fortitude  she  was  a 
true  daughter  of  Henry  of  Navarre.  Her  energy  was 
unsparing,  and  her  courage.  Nine  times  she  crossed 
the  seas  in  storm  and  tempest.  When  her  waiting- 
women  were  trembling  and  weeping,  she  assured  them, 
with  an  air  of  natural  serenity  that  seemed  of  itself  to 
bring  back  calm,  that  no  queen  was  ever  drowned. 

D'Ewes  has  left  a  picture  of  the  queen  as  he  saw  her 
at  dinner  at  Whitehall,  long  after  her  marriage :  "I 
perceived  her  to  be  a  most  absolute  delicate  lady,  after 
I  had  exactly  surveyed  all  the  features  of  her  face, 
much  enlivened  by  her  radiant  and  sparkling  black 
eyes.  Besides,  her  deportment  among  her  women  was 
so  sweet  and  humble,  and  her  speech  and  looks  to  her 
other  servants  so  mild  and  gracious,  as  I  could  not 


THE  STATE  AND  ITS   LEADERS        31 

abstain  from  divers  deep-fetched  sighs,  to  consider  that 
she  wanted  the  knowledge  of  the  true  rehgion."  "The 
queen,"  says  Burnet,  "was  a  woman  of  great  vivacity 
in  conversation,  and  loved  all  her  life  long  to  be  in  in- 
trigues of  all  sorts,  but  was  not  so  secret  in  them  as 
such  times  and  affairs  required.  She  was  a  woman  of 
no  manner  of  judgment;  she  was  bad  at  contrivance, 
and  much  worse  in  execution;  but  by  the  liveliness  of 
her  discourse  she  made  always  a  great  impression  on 
the  king." 


Just  as  the  historic  school  has  come  to  an  end  that 
despatched  Oliver  Cromwell  as  a  hypocrite,  so  we  are 
escaping  from  the  other  school  that  dismissed  Charles 
as  a  tyrant,  Laud  as  a  driveller  and  a  bigot,  and  Went- 
worth  as  an  apostate.  That  Wentworth  passed  over 
from  the  popular  to  the  royalist  side,  and  that  by  the 
same  act  he  improved  his  fortunes  and  exalted  his 
influence  is  true.  But  there  is  no  good  reason  to  con- 
demn him  of  shifting  the  foundation  of  his  views  of 
national  policy.  He  was  never  a  Puritan,  and  never  a 
partizan  of  the  supremacy  of  Parliament.  By  tem- 
perament and  conviction  he  was  a  firm  believer  in  or- 
ganized authority;  though  he  began  in  opposition,  his 
instincts  all  carried  him  toward  the  side  of  govern- 
ment; and  if  he  came  round  to  the  opinion  that  a  single 
person,  and  not  the  House  of  Commons,  was  the  vital 
organ  of  national  authority,  this  was  an  opinion  that 
Cromwell  himself  in  some  of  the  days  to  come  was 
destined  apparently  to  share  and  to  exemplify.  Went- 
worth's  ideal  was  centered  in  a  strong  state,  exerting 
power  for  the  common  good;  and  the  mainspring  of 
a  strong  state  must  be  a  monarch,  not  Parliament.  It 
was  the  idea  of  the  time  that  governing  initiative  must 


32  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

come  from  the  throne,  with  or  without  a  check  in  the 
people.  Happily  for  us,  men  of  deeper  insight  than 
Wentworth  perceived  that  the  assertion  of  the  popular 
check  was  at  this  deciding  moment  in  English  history- 
more  important  than  to  strengthen  executive  power  in 
the  hands  of  the  king.  Wentworth,  with  all  the  bias 
of  a  man  born  for  government  and  action,  may  easily 
have  come  to  think  otherwise.  That  he  associated  the 
elevation  of  his  own  personality  with  the  triumph  of 
what  he  took  for  the  right  cause,  is  a  weakness,  if 
weakness  it  be,  that  he  shares  with  some  of  the  most 
upright  reformers  that  have  ever  lived.  It  is  a  chaste 
ambition  if  rightly  placed,  he  said  at  his  trial,  to  have 
as  much  power  as  may  be,  that  there  may  be  power  to 
do  the  more  good  in  the  place  where  a  man  lives.  The 
actual  possession  of  power  stimulated  this  natural 
passion  for  high  principles  of  government.  His  judg- 
ment was  clear,  as  his  wit  and  fancy  were  quick.  He 
was  devoted  to  friends,  never  weary  of  taking  pains 
for  them,  thinking  nothing  too  dear  for  them.  If  he 
was  extremely  choleric  and  impatient,  yet  it  was  in  a 
large  and  imperious  way.  He  had  energy,  baldness, 
unsparing  industry  and  attention,  long-sighted  conti- 
nuity of  thought  and  plan,  lofty  flight,  and  as  true  a 
concern  for  order  and  the  public  service  as  Pym  or 
Oliver  or  any  of  them. 

One  short  scene  may  suffice  to  bring  him  in  act  and 
life  before  us.  The  convention  of  the  Irish  clergy  met 
to  discuss  the  question  of  bringing  their  canons  into 
conformity  with  those  of  the  English  Church.  Went- 
worth writes  from  Dublin  to  Laud  (1634)  : 

The  popish  party  growing  extreme  perverse  in  the  Com- 
mons House,  and  the  parliament  thereby  in  great  danger  to 
have  been  lost  in  a  storm,  had  so  taken  up  my  thoughts  and 
endeavours,  that  for  five  or  six  days  it  was  not  almost  possible 


From  the  original  portrait  by  Van  Dyck  at  Windsor  Castle. 
QUEEN    HENRIETTA    MARIA. 


THE  STATE  AND  ITS  LEADERS    33 

for  me  to  take  an  account  how  business  went  amongst  them 
of  the  clergy.  ...  At  length  I  got  a  little  time,  and  that  most 
happily,  to  inform  myself  of  the  state  of  those  papers,  and 
found  (that  they  had  done  divers  things  of  great  inconvenience 
without  consultation  with  their  bishops).  I  instandy  sent  for 
Dean  Andrews,  that  reverend  clerk  who  sat  forsooth  in  the 
chair  of  this  committee,  requiring  him  to  bring  along  the  afore- 
said book  of  canons.  .  .  .  When  I  came  to  open  the  book 
and  run  over  their  de liber atidmns  in  the  margin,  I  confess  I 
was  not  so  much  moved  since  I  came  into  Ireland.  I  told 
him,  certainly  not  a  dean  of  Limerick,  but  Ananias  had  sat  in 
the  chair  of  that  committee ;  however  sure  I  was  Ananias  had 
been  there  in  spirit,  if  not  in  body,  with  all  the  fraternities  and 
conventicles  of  Amsterdam;  that  I  was  ashamed  and  scan- 
dalised with  it  above  measure.  I  therefore  said  he  should 
leave  the  book  with  me,  and  that  I  did  command  him  that  he 
should  report  nothing  to  the  House  until  he  heard  again  from 
me.  Being  thus  nettled,  I  gave  present  directions  for  a  meet- 
ing, and  warned  the  primate  (certain  bishops,  etc.)  to  be  with 
me  the  next  morning.  Then  I  publicly  told  them  how  unlike 
clergymen,  that  owed  canonical  obedience  to  their  superiors, 
they  had  proceeded  in  their  committee ;  how  unheard  of  a 
part  it  was  for  a  few  petty  clerks  to  presume  to  make  articles 
of  faith.  ,  .  .  But  those  heady  and  arrogant  courses,  they  must 
know,  I  was  not  to  endure;  but  if  they  were  disposed  to  be 
frantic  in  this  dead  and  cold  season  of  the  year,  would  I  suffer 
them  to  be  heard  either  in  convocation  or  in  their  pulpits. 
(Then  he  gave  them  five  specific  orders.)  This  meeting  then 
broke  off;  there  were  some  hot  spirits,  sons  of  thunder, 
amongst  them,  who  moved  that  they  should  petition  me  for  a 
free  synod.  But,  in  fine,  they  could  not  agree  among  them- 
selves who  should  put  the  bell  about  the  cat's  neck,  and  so 
this  likewise  vanished. 

All  this  marks  precisely  the  type  of  man  required  to 
deal  with  ecclesiastics  and  rapacious  nobles  alike.    The 

3 


34  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

English  colonist  and  his  ecclesiastical  confederate  and 
ally  were  the  enemy,  and  nobody  has  ever  seen  this  so 
effectually  as  Strafford  saw  it.  Bishops  were  said  to 
be  displaced  with  no  more  ceremony  than  excisemen. 
The  common  impression  of  Wentworth  is  shown  in  an 
anecdote  about  Williams,  afterward  Archbishop  of 
York.  When  the  court  tried  to  pacify  Williams  with 
the  promise  of  a  good  bishopric  in  Ireland,  he  replied 
that  he  had  held  out  for  seven  years  against  his  ene- 
mies in  England,  but  if  they  sent  him  to  Ireland  he 
would  fall  into  the  hands  of  a  man  who  within  seven 
months  would  find  out  some  old  statute  or  other  to  cut 
off  his  head. 

The  pretty  obvious  parallel  has  often  been  suggested 
between  Strafford  and  Richelieu;  but  it  is  no  more 
than  superficial.  There  is  no  proportion  between  the 
vast  combinations,  the  immense  designs,  the  remorse- 
less rigors,  and  the  majestic  success  with  which  the 
great  cardinal  built  up  royal  power  in  France  and  sub- 
jugated reactionary  forces  in  Europe,  and  the  petty 
scale  of  Wentworth's  eight  years  of  rule  in  Ireland. 
To  frighten  Dean  Andrews  or  Lord  Mountnorris  out 
of  their  wits  was  a  very  different  business  from  bring- 
ing Montmorencys,  Chalais.  Marillacs,  Cinq-Mars,  to 
the  scaffold.  It  is  true  that  the  general  aim  was  not 
very  different.  Richelieu  said  to  the  king :  "I  prom- 
ised your  Majesty  to  employ  all  my  industry  and  all 
the  authority  that  he  might  be  pleased  to  give  me  to 
ruin  the  Huguenot  party,  to  beat  down  the  pride  of  the 
great,  to  reduce  all  subjects  to  their  duty,  and  to  raise 
up  his  name  among  other  nations  to  the  height  at 
which  it  ought  to  be."  Strafford  would  have  said  much 
the  same.  He,  too,  aspired  to  make  his  country  a  lead- 
ing force  in  the  counsels  of  Europe,  as  Elizabeth  had 
done,  and  by  Elizabeth's  patient  and  thrifty  policy. 


THE  STATE  AND  ITS   LEADERS         35 

Unlike  his  master  of  flighty  and  confused  brain  he  per- 
ceived the  need  of  system  and  a  sure  foundation. 
Strafford's  success  would  have  meant  the  transforma- 
tion of  the  state  within  the  three  kingdoms,  not  into 
the  monarchy  of  the  Restoration  of  1660  or  of  the 
Revokttion  of  1688,  but  at  best  into  something  like  the 
qualified  absolutism  of  modern  Prussia. 

As  time  went  on,  and  things  grew  hotter,  his  ardent 
and  haughty  genius  drew  him  into  more  energetic 
antagonism  to  the  popular  claim  and  its  champions. 
In  his  bold  and  imposing  personality  they  recognized 
that  all  those  sinister  ideas,  methods,  and  aims  which 
it  was  the  business  of  their  lives  to  overthrow,  were 
gathered  up.  The  precise  date  is  not  easily  fixed  at 
which  Wentworth  gained  a  declared  ascendancy  in  the 
royal  counsels,  if  ascendancy  be  the  right  word  for  a 
chief  position  in  that  unstable  chamber.  In  1632  he 
was  made  lord-deputy  in  Ireland,  he  reached  Dublin 
Castle  in  the  following  year,  and  for  seven  years  he 
devoted  himself  exclusively  to  Irish  administration. 
He  does  not  seem  to  have  been  consulted  upon  general 
affairs  before  1637,  and  it  was  later  than  this  when 
Charles  began  to  lean  upon  him.  It  was  not  until 
1640  that  he  could  prevail  upon  the  king  to  augment 
his  political  authority  by  making  him  lord-lieutenant 
and  Earl  of  Strafford. 

If  Strafford  was  a  bad  counselor  for  the  times,  and 
the  queen  a  worse.  Laud,  who  filled  the  critical  station 
of  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  was  perhaps  the  worst 
counselor  of  the  three.  Still  let  us  save  ourselves 
from  the  extravagances  of  some  modern  history. 
"His  memory,"  writes  one,  "is  still  loathed  as  the 
meanest,  the  most  cruel,  and  the  most  narrow-minded 
man  who  ever  sat  on  the  episcopal  bench"  (Buckle). 
"We  entertain  more  unmitigated  contempt  for  him," 


36  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

says  another,  "than  for  any  character  in  history" 
(Macaulay).  It  is  pretty  safe  to  be  sure  that  these 
slashing  superlatives  are  never  true.  Laud  was  no 
more  the  simpleton  and  the  bigot  of  Macaulay,  than  he 
was  the  saint  to  whom  in  our  day  Anglican  high-fliers 
dedicate  painted  windows,  or  who  describe  him  as  New- 
man did,  as  being  "cast  in  a  mold  of  proportions  that 
are  much  above  our  own,  and  of  a  stature  akin  to  the 
elder  days  of  the  church."  Burnet,  who  was  no 
Laudian,  says  that  he  "was  a  learned,  a  sincere  and 
zealous  man,  regular  in  his  own  life,  and  humble  in  his 
private  deportment;  but  he  was  a  hot,  indiscreet  man. 
eagerly  pursuing  some  matters  that  were  either  very 
inconsiderable  or  mischievous,  such  as  setting  the  com- 
munion-table by  the  east  wall  of  churches,  bowing 
to  it  and  calling  it  the  altar,  the  breaking  of  lectures, 
the  encouraging  of  sports  on  the  Lord's  day ;  .  .  . 
and  yet  all  the  zeal  and  heat  of  that  time  was  laid  out 
on  these."  The  agent  of  the  Vatican  described  him  as 
timid,  ambitious,  inconstant,  and  therefore  ill  equipped 
for  great  enterprises.  Whitelocke  tells  us  that  his 
father  was  anciently  and  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
Laud,  and  used  to  say  of  him  that  he  was  "too  full  of 
fire,  though  a  just  and  good  man ;  and  that  his  want  of 
experience  in  state  matters,  and  his  too  much  zeal  for 
the  church,  and  heat  if  he  proceeded  in  the  way  he  was 
then  in,  would  set  this  nation  on  fire." 

It  was  indeed  Laud  who  did  most  to  kindle  the  blaze. 
He  was  harder  than  anybody  else  both  in  the  Star 
Chamber  and  the  High  Commission.  He  had  a  rest- 
less mind,  a  sharp  tongue,  and  a  hot  temper ;  he  took 
no  trouble  to  persuade,  and  he  leaned  wholly  on  the 
law  of  the  church  and  the  necessity  of  enforcing  obedi- 
ence to  it.  He  had  all  the  harshness  that  is  so  com- 
mon in  a  man  of  ardent  convictions,  who  happens  not 


THE  STATE  AND  ITS   LEADERS        37 

to  have  intellectual  power  enough  to  defend  them. 
But  he  was  no  harder  of  heart  than  most  of  either  his 
victims  or  his  judges.  Prynne  was  more  malicious,  vin- 
dictive, and  sanguinary  than  Laud ;  and  a  Scottish 
presbyter  could  be  as  arrogant  and  unrelenting  as  the 
English  primate.  Much  of  Laud's  energy  was  that  of 
good  stewardship.  The  reader  who  laughs  at  his 
injunction  that  divines  should  preach  in  gowns  and  not 
in  cloaks,  must  at  least  applaud  when  in  the  same  docu- 
ment avaricious  bishops  are  warned  not  to  dilapidate 
the  patrimony  of  their  successors  by  making  long 
leases,  or  taking  heavy  fines  on  renewal,  or  cutting 
down  the  timber.  This  was  one  side  of  that  love  of 
external  order,  uniformity,  and  decorum,  which,  when 
applied  to  rites  and  ceremonies,  church  furniture, 
church  apparel,  drove  English  Puritanism  frantic. 
'Tt  is  called  superstition  nowadays,"  Laud  complained, 
"for  any  man  to  come  with  more  reverence  into  a 
church,  than  a  tinker  and  his  dog  into  an  ale-house." 

That  he  had  any  leaning  toward  the  Pope  is  cer- 
tainly untrue ;  and  his  eagerness  to  establish  a  branch 
of  the  Church  of  England  in  all  the  courts  of  Christen- 
dom, and  even  in  the  cities  of  the  Grand  Turk,  points 
rather  to  an  exalted  dream  that  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land might  one  day  spread  itself  as  far  abroad  as  the 
Church  of  Rome.  Short  of  this,  he  probably  aspired 
to  found  a  patriarchate  of  the  three  kingdoms,  with 
Canterbury  as  the  metropolitan  center.  He  thought 
the  Puritans  narrow,  and  the  Pope's  men  no  better. 
Churchmen  in  all  ages  are  divided  into  those  on  the  one 
hand  who  think  most  of  institutions,  and  those  on  the 
other  who  think  most  of  the  truths  on  which  the  insti- 
tutions rest,  and  of  the  spirit  that  gives  them  life. 
Laud  was  markedly  of  the  first  of  these  two  types,  and 
even  of  that  doctrinal  zeal  that  passed  for  spiritual 


38  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

unction  in  those  hot  times  he  had  Httle.  Yet  it  is 
worth  remembering  that  it  was  his  influence  that  over- 
came the  rekictance  of  the  pious  and  devoted  George 
Herbert  to  take  orders.  This  can  hardly  have  been 
the  influence  of  a  mean  and  cruel  bigot.  Jeremy  Tay- 
lor, whose  "Liberty  of  Prophesying"  is  one  of  the 
landmarks  in  the  history  of  toleration,  was  the  client 
and  disciple  of  Laud.  His  personal  kindness  to  Chill- 
ingworth  and  to  John  Hales  has  been  taken  as  a  proof 
of  his  tolerance  of  latitudinarianism,  and  some  pas- 
sages in  his  own  works  are  construed  as  favoring  lib- 
eral theology.  That  liberal  theology  would  have  quickly 
progressed  within  the  church  under  Laud's  rule,  so 
long  as  outer  uniformity  was  preserved,  is  probably 
true,  and  an  important  truth  in  judging  the  events  of 
his  epoch.  At  the  same  time  Laud  was  as  hostile  as 
most  contemporary  Puritans  to  doubts  and  curious 
search,  just  as  he  shared  with  his  Presbyterian  enemies 
their  hatred  of  any  toleration  for  creed  or  church  out- 
side of  the  established  fold.  He  was  fond  of  learning 
and  gave  it  munificent  support,  and  he  had  the  merit  of 
doing  what  he  could  to  found  his  cause  upon  reason. 
But  men  cannot  throw  off  the  spirit  of  their  station, 
and  after  all  his  sheet-anchor  was  authority.  His 
ideal  has  been  described  as  a  national  church,  governed 
by  an  aristocracy  of  bishops,  invested  with  certain 
powers  by  divine  right,  and  closely  united  with  the 
monarchy.  Whether  his  object  was  primarily  doc- 
trinal, to  cast  out  the  Calvinistic  spirit,  or  the  restor- 
ation of  church  ceremonial,  it  would  be  hard  to  decide; 
but  we  may  be  sure  that  if  he  actively  hated  heresies 
about  justification  or  predestination,  it  was  rather  as 
breaches  of  order  than  as  either  errors  of  intellect  or 
corruptions  of  soul. 

"He  had  few  vulgar  or  private  vices,"  says  a  con- 


THE  STATE  AND  ITS   LEADERS        39 

temporary,  "and,  in  a  word,  was  not  so  much  to  be 
called  bad  as  unfit  for  the  state  of  England."  He  was 
unfit  for  the  state  of  England,  because,  instead  of  meet- 
ing a  deep  spiritual  movement  with  a  missionary  in- 
spiration of  his  own,  he  sought  no  saintlier  weapons 
than  oppressive  statutes  and  persecuting  law-courts. 
It  may  be  at  least  partially  true  that  the  nation  had 
been  a  consenting  party  to  the  Tudor  despotism,  from 
which  both  statute  and  court  had  come  down.  Per- 
secution has  often  won  in  human  history;  often  has  a 
violent  hand  dashed  out  the  lamp  of  truth.  But  the 
Puritan  exodus  to  New  England  was  a  signal,  and  no 
statesman  ought  to  have  misread  it,  that  new  forces 
were  arising  and  would  require  far  sharper  persecution 
to  crush  them  than  the  temper  of  the  nation  was  likely 
to  endure. 

In  the  early  stages  of.  the  struggle  between  Parlia- 
ment and  king,  the  only  leader  on  the  popular  side  on 
a  level  in  position  with  Strafford  and  Laud  was  John 
Pym,  in  many  ways  the  foremost  of  all  our  Parlia- 
mentary worthies.  A  gentleman  of  good  family  and 
bred  at  Oxford,  he  had  entered  the  House  of  Com- 
mons eleven  years  before  the  accession  of  Charles. 
He  made  his  mark  early  as  one  who  understood  the 
public  finances,  and,  what  was  even  more  to  the  point, 
as  a  determined  enemy  of  popery.  From  the  first,  in 
the  words  of  Clarendon,  he  had  drawn  attention  for 
being  concerned  and  passionate  in  the  jealousies  of  re- 
ligion, and  much  troubled  with  the  countenance  given 
to  the  opinions  of  Arminius.  He  was  a  Puritan  in  the 
widest  sense  of  that  word  of  many  shades.  That  is 
to  say,  in  the  expression  of  one  who  came  later,  "he 
thought  it  part  of  a  man's  religion  to  see  that  his  coun- 
try be  well  governed,"  and  by  good  government  he 
meant  the  rule  of  righteousness  both  in  civil  and  in 


40  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

sacred  things.  He  wished  the  monarchy  to  stand,  and 
the  Church  of  England  to  stand;  nor  was  any  man 
better  grounded  in  the  maxims  and  precedents  that 
had  brought  each  of  those  exaUed  institutions  to  be 
what  it  was. 

Besides  massive  breadth  of  judgment.  Pym  had  one 
of  those  himinous  and  discerning  minds  that  have  the 
rare  secret  in  times  of  high  contention  of  singhng  out 
the  central  issues  and  choosing  the  best  battle-ground. 
Early  he  perceived  and  understood  the  common  im- 
pulse that  was  uniting  throne  and  altar  against  both 
ancient  rights  and  the  social  needs  of  a  new  epoch.  He 
was  no  revolutionist  either  by  temper  or  principle.  A 
single  passage  from  one  of  his  speeches  is  enough  to 
show  us  the  spirit  of  his  statesmanship,  and  it  is  well 
worth  quoting.  "The  best  form  of  government,"  he 
said,  "is  that  which  doth  actuate  and  dispose  eVery  part 
and  member  of  a  state  to  the  common  good;  for  as 
those  parts  give  strength  and  ornament  to  the  whole, 
so  they  receive  from  it  again  strength  and  protection 
in  their  several  stations  and  degrees.  If.  instead  of 
concord  and  interchange  of  support,  one  part  seeks  to 
uphold  an  old  form  of  government,  and  the  other  part 
introduce  a  new,  they  will  miserably  consume  one  an- 
other. Histories  are  full  of  the  calamities  of  entire 
estates  and  nations  in  such  cases.  It  is.  nevertheless, 
equally  true  that  time  must  needs  bring  about  some 
alterations.  .  .  .  Therefore  have  those  common- 
wealths been  ever  the  most  durable  and  perpetual 
which  have  often  reformed  and  recomposed  themselves 
according  to  their  first  institution  and  ordinance.  By 
this  means  they  repair  the  breaches,  and  counterwork 
the  ordinary  and  natural  effects  of  time." 

This  was  the  English  temper  at  its  best.  Sur- 
rounded by  men  who  were  often  apt  to  take  narrow 


THE  STATE  AND  ITS  LEADERS    41 

views,  Pym,  if  ever  English  statesman  did,  took  broad 
ones ;  and  to  impose  broad  views  upon  the  narrow  is 
one  of  the  things  that  a  party  leader  exists  for.  He 
had  the  double  gift,  so  rare  even  among  leaders  in 
popular  assemblies,  of  being  at  once  practical  and  ele- 
vated ;  a  master  of  tactics  and  organizing  arts,  and  yet 
the  inspirer  of  solid  and  lofty  principles.  How  can 
we  measure  the  perversity  of  a  king  and  counselors 
who  forced  into  opposition  a  man  so  imbued  with  the 
deep  instinct  of  government,  so  whole-hearted,  so  keen 
of  sight,  so  skilful  in  resource  as  Pym. 


CHAPTER   III 


PURITANISM    AND    THE    DOUBLE    ISSUE 


UNIVERSAL  history  has  been  truly  said  to  make 
a  large  part  of  every  national  history.  The  lamp 
that  lights  the  path  of  a  single  nation,  receives  its 
kindling  flame  from  a  central  line  of  beacon-fires  that 
mark  the  onward  journey  of  the  race.  The  English 
have  never  been  less  insular  in  thought  and  interest 
than  they  were  in  the  seventeenth  century.  About  the 
time  when  Calvin  died  (1564)  it  seemed  as  if  the 
spiritual  empire  of  Rome  would  be  confined  to  the  two 
peninsulas  of  Italy  and  Spain.  North  of  the  Alps 
and  north  of  the  Pyrenees  the  Reformation  appeared  to 
be  steadily  sweeping  all  before  it.  Then  the  floods 
turned  back ;  the  power  of  the  papacy  revived,  its 
moral  ascendancy  was  restored ;  the  Counter- Reforma- 
tion or  the  Catholic  reaction  by  the  time  when  Crom- 
well and  Charles  came  into  the  world,  had  achieved 
startling  triumphs.  The  indomitable  activity  of  the 
Jesuits  had  converted  opinion,  and  the  arm  of  flesh 
lent  its  aid  in  the  holy  task  of  reconquering  Christen- 
dom. What  the  arm  of  flesh  meant  the  English  could 
see  with  the  visual  eye.  They  never  forgot  Mary 
Tudor  and  the  Protestant  martyrs.  In  1567  Alva  set 
up  his  court  of  blood  in  the  Netherlands.  In  1572  the 
42 


PURITANISM    AND   THE    STATE         43 

pious  work  in  France  began  with  the  massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew.  In  1588  the  Armada  appeared  in  the 
British  Channel  for  the  subjugation  and  conversion  of 
England.  In  1605  Guy  Fawkes  and  his  powder-bar- 
rels were  found  in  the  vault  under  the  House  of  Lords. 
These  were  the  things  that  explain  that  endless  angry 
refrain  against  popery,  that  rings  through  our  seven- 
teenth century  with  a  dolorous  monotony  at  which 
modern  indifference  may  smile  and  reason  and  toler- 
ance may  groan. 

Britain  and  Holland  were  the  two  Protestant  strong- 
holds, and  it  was  noticed  that  the  Catholics  in  Holland 
were  daily  multiplying  into  an  element  of  exceeding 
strength,  while  in  England,  though  the  Catholics  had 
undoubtedly  fallen  to  something  very  considerably  less 
than  the  third  of  the  whole  population,  which  was  their 
proportion  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  still  they  began 
under  James  and  Charles  to  increase  again.  People 
counted  with  horror  in  Charles's  day  some  ninety 
Catholics  in  places  of  trust  about  the  court,  and  over 
one  hundred  and  ninety  of  them  enjoying  property  and 
position  in  the  English  counties.  What  filled  England 
with  dismay  filled  the  pertinacious  Pope  Urban  VIII 
with  the  hope  of  recovering  here  some  of  the  ground 
that  he  had  lost  elsewhere,  and  he  sent  over  first  Pan- 
zani,  then  Cuneo,  then  Rossetti,  to  work  for  the  recon-* 
quest  to  Catholicism  of  the  nation  whom  another  pope 
a  thousand  years  before  had  first  brought  within  the 
Christian  fold.  The  presence  of  the  Roman  agents  at 
Whitehall  only  made  English  Protestantism  more  vio- 
lently restive.  A  furious  struggle  was  raging  on  the 
continent  of  Europe.  The  Thirty  Years'  War  (1618- 
1648)  was  not  in  all  its  many  phases  a  contest  of  Pro- 
testant and  Catholic,  but  that  tremendous  issue  was 
never  remote  or  extinct ;  and  even  apart  from  the  im- 


44  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

portant  circumstance  that  the  Elector  Palatine  had  es- 
poused the  daughter  of  James  I,  its  fluctuations  kept 
up  a  strong  and  constant  under-current  of  feeling  and 
attention  in  England. 


"The  greatest  liberty  of  our  kingdom  is  religion,"  said 
Pym,  and  Cromwell's  place  in  history  is  due  to  the 
breadth  with  which  he  underwent  this  mastering  im- 
pression of  the  time,  and  associated  in  his  own  person 
the  double  conditions,  political  and  moral,  of  national 
advance.  Though  the  conditions  were  twofold,  relig- 
ion strikes  the  key-note.  Like  other  movements,  the 
course  of  the  Reformation  followed  the  inborn  differ- 
ences of  human  temperament,  and  in  due  time  divided 
itself  into  a  right  wing  and  a  left.  Passion  and  logic, 
the  two  great  working  elements  of  revolutionary 
change,  often  over-hot  the  one,  and  narrow  and  sophis- 
ticated the  other,  carry  men  along  at  different  rates 
according  to  their  natural  composition,  and  drop  them 
at  different  stages.  Most  go  to  fierce  extremes;  few 
hold  on  in  the  "quiet  flow  of  truths  that  soften  hatred, 
temper  strife" ;  and  for  these  chosen  spirits  there  is  no 
place  in  the  hour  of  conflagration.  In  England  the 
left  wing  of  Protestantism  was  Puritanism,  and  Puri- 
tanism in  its  turn  threw  out  an  extreme  left  with  a 
hundred  branches  of  its  own.  The  history  of  Crom- 
well almost  exactly  covers  this  development  from  the 
steady-going  doctrinal  Puritanism  that  he  found  pre- 
vailing when  he  first  emerged  upon  the  public  scene, 
down  to  the  faiths  of  the  hundred  and  seventy  enthusi- 
astic sects  whom  he  still  left  preaching  and  praying 
and  warring  behind  him  when  his  day  was  over. 
In  this  long  process,  so  extensive  and  so  compli- 


PURITANISM   AND   THE   STATE        45 

cated, — an  inter-related  evolution  of  doctrine,  disci- 
pline, manners,  ritual,  church  polity,  all  closely  linked 
with  corresponding  changes  in  affairs  of  civil  govern- 
ment,— it  is  not  easy  to  select  a  leading  clue  through 
the  labyrinth.  It  is  not  easy  to  disentangle  the  double 
plot  in  church  and  state,  nor  to  fix  in  a  single  formula 
that  wide  twofold  impulse,  religious  and  political, 
under  which  Cromwell's  age  and  Cromwell  the  man 
of  his  age,  marched  toward  their  own  ideals  of  purified 
life  and  higher  citizenship.  It  is  enough  here  to  say  in 
a  word  that  in  the  Cromwellian  period,  when  the  fer- 
ment at  once  so  subtle  and  so  tumultuous  had  begun 
to  clear,  it  was  found  that,  though  by  no  direct  and  far- 
sighted  counsel  of  Cromwell's  own,  two  fertile  princi- 
ples had  struggled  into  recognized  life  upon  English 
soil — the  principle  of  Toleration,  and  the  principle  of 
free  or  voluntary  churches.  These  might  both  of  them 
have  seemed  to  be  of  the  very  essence  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, but  as  everybody  knows  Free  Inquiry  and  Free 
Conscience,  the  twin  pillars  of  Protestantism  in  its  fun- 
damental theory,  were  in  practise  hidden  out  of  sight  and 
memory,  and  as  we  shall  see  even  Cromwell  and  his 
Independents  shrank  from  the  full  acceptance  of  their 
own  doctrines.  The  advance  from  the  early  to  the 
later  phases  of  Puritanism  was  not  rapid.  Heated  as 
the  effervescence  was,  its  solid  products  were  slow  to 
disengage  themselves.  Only  by  steps  did  the  new 
principles  of  Toleration  and  the  Free  Church  find  a 
place  even  in  the  two  most  capacious  understandings 
of  the  time — in  the  majestic  reason  of  Milton  and  the 
vigorous  and  penetrating  practical  perceptions  of 
Cromwell. 

Puritanism  meanwhile  profited  by  the  common  ten- 
dency among  men  of  all  times  to  set  down  whatever 
goes  amiss  to  something  wrong  in  government.     It  is 


46  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

in  vain  for  the  most  part  that  sage  observers  Hke 
Hooker  try  to  persuade  us  that  "these  stains  and  blem- 
ishes, springing  from  the  root  of  human  frailty  and 
corruption,  will  remain  until  the  end  of  the  world, 
what  form  of  government  soever  take  place."  Man- 
kind is  by  nature  too  restless,  too  readily  indignant, 
too  hopeful,  too  credulous  of  the  unknown,  ever  to  ac- 
quiesce in  this.  But  the  English  Revolution  of  the 
seventeenth  century  was  no  mere  ordinary  case  of  a 
political  opposition.  The  Puritans  of  the  Cromwellian 
time  were  forced  into  a  brave  and  energetic  conflict 
against  misgovernment  in  church  and  state.  But  it 
is  to  the  honor  of  Puritanism  in  all  its  phases  that  it 
strove  with  unending  constancy,  by  the  same  effort  to 
pierce  inward  to  those  very  roots  of  "human  frailty 
and  corruption"  which  are  always  the  true  cause  of 
the  worst  mischiefs  of  an  unregenerate  world.  Puri- 
tanism came  from  the  deeps.  It  was,  like  Stoicism, 
Monasticism,  Jansenism,  even  Mohammedanism,  a 
manifestation  of  elements  in  human  nature  that  are 
indestructible.  It  flowed  from  yearnings  that  make 
themselves  felt  in  Eastern  world  and  Western;  it 
sprang  from  aspirations  that  breathe  in  men  and 
women  of  many  communions  and  faiths ;  it  arose  in 
instincts  that  seldom  conquer  for  more  than  a  brief  sea- 
son, and  yet  are  never  crushed.  An  ascetic  and  un- 
worldly way  of  thinking  about  life,  a  rigorous  moral 
strictness,  the  subjugation  of  sense  and  appetite,  a  cold- 
ness to  every  element  in  worship  and  ordinance  exter- 
nal to  the  believer's  own  soul,  a  dogma  unyielding  as 
cast-iron — all  these  things  satisfy  moods  and  sensibil- 
ities in  man  that  are  often  silent  and  fleeting,  are  easily 
drowned  in  reaction,  but  are  readily  responsive  to  the 
awakening  voice. 

History,  as  Dollinger  has  said,  is  no  simple  game 


PURITANISM    AND    THE   STATE         47 

of  abstractions;  men  are  more  than  doctrines.  It  is 
not  a  certain  theory  of  grace  that  makes  the  Reforma- 
tion; it  is  Luther,  it  is  Calvin.  Calvin  shaped  the 
mold  in  which  the  bronze  of  Puritanism  was  cast. 
That  commanding  figure,  of  such  vast  power  yet  some- 
how with  so  little  luster,  by  his  unbending  will,  his 
pride,  his  severity,  his  French  spirit  of  system,  his  gift 
for  government,  for  legislation,  for  dialectic  in  every 
field,  his  incomparable  industry  and  persistence,  had 
conquered  a  more  than  pontifical  ascendancy  in  the 
Protestant  world.  He  meets  us  in  England,  as  in 
Scotland,  Holland,  France,  Switzerland,  and  the  rising 
England  across  the  Atlantic.  He  was  dead  (1564)  a 
generation  before  Cromwell  was  born,  but  his  influence 
was  still  at  its  height.  Nothing  less  than  to  create  in 
man  a  new  nature  was  his  far-reaching  aim,  to  regen- 
erate character,  to  simplify  and  consolidate  religious 
faith.  Men  take  a  narrow  view  of  Calvin  when  they 
think  of  him  only  as  the  preacher  of  justification  by 
faith,  and  the  foe  of  sacerdotal  mediation.  His  scheme 
comprehended  a  doctrine  that  went  to  the  very  root  of 
man's  relations  with  the  scheme  of  universal  things ;  a 
church  order  as  closely  compacted  as  that  of  Rome;  a 
system  of  moral  discipline  as  concise  and  as  imperative 
as  the  code  of  Napoleon.  He  built  it  all  upon  a  certain 
theory  of  the  government  of  the  universe,  which  by 
his  agency  has  exerted  an  amazing  influence  upon  the 
world.  It  is  a  theory  that  might  have  been  expected 
to  sink  men  crouching  and  paralyzed  into  the  blackest 
abysses  of  despair,  and  it  has  in  fact  been  answerable 
for  much  anguish  in  many  a  human  heart.  Still  Cal- 
vinism has  proved  itself  a  famous  soil  for  rearing 
heroic  natures.  Founded  on  St.  Paul  and  on  Augustine, 
it  was  in  two  or  three  centuries  this : — Before  the 
foundations  of  the  world  were  laid,  it  was  decreed  by 


48  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

counsel  secret  to  us  that  some  should  be  chosen  out  of 
mankind  to  everlasting  salvation,  and  others  to  curse 
and  damnation.  In  the  figure  of  the  memorable  pas- 
sage of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  as  the  potter  has 
power  over  the  clay,  so  men  are  fashioned  by  ante- 
mundane  will,  some  to  be  vessels  of  honor  and  of 
mercy,  others  to  be  vessels  of  dishonor  and  of  wrath. 
Then  the  Potter  has  mercy  on  whom  he  will  have 
mercy,  and  whom  he  will  he  hardeneth.  On  this  black 
granite  of  Fate,  Predestination,  and  Foreknowledge 
absolute,  the  strongest  of  the  Protestant  fortresses  all 
over  the  world  were  founded.  Well  might  it  have 
been  anticipated  that  fatalism  as  unflinching  as  this 
would  have  driven  men  headlong  into  "desperation 
and  wretchlessness  of  most  unclean  living."  Yet  that 
was  no  more  the  actual  effect  of  the  fatalism  of  St. 
Paul,  Augustine,  and  Calvin  than  it  was  of  the  fatal- 
ism of  the  Stoics  or  of  Mohammed.  On  the  contrary, 
Calvinism  exalted  its  votaries  to  a  pitch  of  heroic 
moral  energy  that  has  never  been  surpassed ;  and  men 
who  were  bound  to  suppose  themselves  moving  in 
chains  inexorably  riveted,  along  a  track  ordained  by  a 
despotic  and  unseen  Will  before  time  began,  have  yet 
exhibited  an  active  courage,  a  resolute  endurance,  a 
cheerful  self-restraint,  an  exulting  self-sacrifice,  that 
men  count  among  the  highest  glories  of  the  human 
conscience. 

It  is  interesting  to  think  what  is  the  secret  of  this 
strange  effect  of  the  doctrine  of  fatality;  for  that  was 
the  doctrine  over  which  Cromwell  brooded  in  his  hours 
of  spiritual  gloom,  and  on  which  he  nourished  his  for- 
titude in  days  of  fierce  duress,  of  endless  traverses  and 
toils.  Is  it,  as  some  have  said,  that  people  embraced  a 
rigorous  doctrine  because  they  were  themselves  by  na- 
ture austere,  absolute,  stiff,  just  rather  than  merciful? 


From  the  portrait  at  Hinchinbrnuk,  by  Stone,  after  Van  Dyck, 
by  permission  of  the  Earl  of  Sandwich. 

■WILLIAM    LAUD    ARCHBISHOP   OF   CANTERBIRV. 


PURITANISM    AND    THE    STATE        49 

Is  it,  in  other  words,  character  that  fixes  creed, 
or  creed  that  fashions  character?  Or  is  there  a  brac- 
ing and  an  exalting  effect  in  the  unrewarded  morality 
of  Calvinism ;  in  the  doctrine  that  good  works  done  in 
view  of  future  recompense  have  no  merit ;  in  that  obe- 
dience to  duty  for  its  own  sake  which,  in  Calvin  as  in 
Kant,  has  been  called  one  of  the  noblest  efforts  of  hu- 
man conscience  toward  pure  virtue?  Or,  again,  is 
there  something  invigorating  and  inspiring  in  the 
thought  of  acting  in  harmony  with  eternal  law,  how- 
ever grim ;  of  being  no  mere  link  in  a  chain  of  mechan- 
ical causation,  but  a  chosen  instrument  in  executing 
the  sublime  decrees  of  invincible  power  and  infinite 
intelligence?  However  we  may  answer  all  the  in- 
soluble practical  enigmas  that  confronted  the  Calvin- 
ist,  just  as  for  that  matter  they  confront  the  philo- 
sophic necessarian  or  determinist  of  to-day,  Calvinism 
was  the  general  theory  through  which  Cromwell 
looked  forth  upon  the  world.  That  he  ever  argued  it 
out,  or  was  of  a  turn  of  mind  for  arguing  it  out,  we 
need  not  suppose.  Without  ascending  to  those  clouded 
and  frowning  heights,  he  established  himself  on  the 
solid  rock  of  Calvinistic  faith  that  made  their  base. 

Simplification  is  the  key-word  to  the  Reformation, 
as  it  is  to  every  other  revolution  with  a  moral  core. 
The  vast  fabric  of  belief,  practice,  and  worship  which 
the  hosts  of  popes,  doctors,  schoolmen,  founders  of 
orders,  the  saints  and  sages  in  all  their  classes  and 
degrees,  had  with  strong  brains  and  devout  hearts 
built  up  in  the  life  and  imagination  of  so  many  cen- 
turies, was  brought  back  to  the  ideal  of  a  single  simpli- 
fied relation — God,  the  Bible,  the  conscience  of  the  in- 
dividual man,  and  nothing  more  nor  beyond.  The 
substitution  of  the  book  for  the  church  was  the  essence 
of  the   Protestant  revolt,  and  it  was  the  essence  of 

4 


so  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

Cromweirs  whole  intellectual  being.  Like  "the  Chris- 
tian Cicero,"  twelve  centuries  before,  he  said :  "We 
who  are  instructed  in  the  science  of  truth  by  the  Holy 
Scriptures  know  the  beginning  of  the  world  and  its 
end." 

CromweH's  Bible  was  not  what  the  Bible  is  to-day. 
Criticism — comparative,  chronological,  philological, 
historical — had  not  impaired  its  position  as  the  direct 
word  of  God,  a  single  book,  one  and  whole,  one  page 
as  inspired  as  another,  one  text  as  binding  as  another. 
Faith  in  the  literal  construction  of  the  word  was  pushed 
to  an  excess  as  much  resembling  a  true  superstition  or 
over-belief,  as  anything  imputed  to  the  Catholics. 
Science  had  set  up  no  reign  of  law,  nor  hinted  a  doubt 
on  the  probabilities  of  miraculous  intervention.  No 
physical  theories  had  dimmed  faith  in  acts  of  specific 
creation,  the  aerial  perspective  and  vistas  of  time  were 
very  primitive.  Whatever  happened,  great  or  small, 
was  due  to  wrath  or  favor  from  above..  When  an 
organ  was  burned  down  in  the  new  French  church  at 
the  Hague,  it  was  an  omen  of  the  downfall  of  popery 
and  prelacy.  \\'hen  the  foreman  superintending  the 
building  of  a  castle  for  the  Queen  at  Bristol,  fell  from 
a  ladder  and  broke  his  neck,  it  was  a  stupendous  testi- 
mony against  the  Scarlet  Woman.  Tiverton  by  hold- 
ing its  market  on  a  Monday  made  occasion  for  profan- 
ing the  Lord's  Day,  and  so  the  town  was  burned  to  the 
ground.  Fishermen  one  Sabbath  morning,  the  sun 
shining  hot  upon  the  water,  and  a  great  company  of 
salmon  at  play,  were  tempted  to  put  forth,  and  they 
made  a  great  draft,  but  God's  judgment  did  not  halt, 
for  never  more  were  fish  caught  there,  and  the  neigh- 
boring town  was  half  ruined.  People  were  tormented 
by  no  misgivings,  as  Ranke  says,  how  "the  secrets  of 
divine  things  could  be  brought  into  such  direct  con- 


PURITANISM    AND   THE    STATE         51 

nection  with  the  compHcations  of  human  affairs." 
The  God  to  whom  Cromwell  in  heart  as  in  speech  ap- 
pealed was  no  stream  of  tendency,  no  super-naturalis- 
tic hypothesis,  no  transcendental  symbol  or  synthesis, 
but  the  Lord  of  Hosts  of  the  Old  Testament.  The 
saints  and  Puritans  were  the  chosen  people.  All  the 
denunciations  of  the  prophets  against  the  oppressors 
of  Israel  were  applied  to  the  letter  against  bishops  and 
princes.  And  Moses  and  Joshua,  Gideon  and  Barak, 
Samson  and  Jephthah,  were  the  antitypes  of  those  who 
now  in  a  Christian  world  thought  themselves  called, 
like  those  heroes  of  old  time,  to  stop  the  mouths  of 
lions  and  turn  to  flight  the  armies  of  the  aliens. 

Cromwell  is  never  weary  of  proclaiming  that  the 
things  that  have  come  to  pass  have  been  the  wonderful 
works  of  God,  breaking  the  rod  of  the  oppressor. 
Great  place  and  business  in  the  world,  he  says,  is  not 
worth  looking  after ;  he  does  not  seek  such  things ;  he 
is  called  to  them,  and  is  not  without  assurance  that  the 
Lord  will  enable  his  poor  worm  to  do  his  will  and  ful- 
fil his  generation.  The  vital  thing  is  to  fear  unbelief, 
self-seeking,  confidence  in  the  arm  of  flesh,  and  opin- 
ion of  any  instruments  that  they  are  other  than  as  dry 
bones.  Of  dogma  he  rarely  speaks.  Religion  to  him 
is  not  dogma,  but  communion  with  a  Being  apart  from 
dogma.  "Seek  the  lord  and  his  face  continually,"  he 
writes  to  Richard  Cromwell,  his  son;  "let  this  be  the 
business  of  your  life  and  strength,  and  let  all  things 
be  subservient  and  in  order  to  this."  To  Richard 
Mayor,  the  father  of  his  son's  wife,  he  says :  "Truly 
our  work  is  neither  from  our  own  brains  nor  from  our 
courage  and  strength;  but  we  follow  the  Lord  who 
goeth  before,  and  gather  what  he  scattereth,  that  so 
all  may  appear  to  be  from  him."  Such  is  ever  the  re- 
frain, incessantly  repeated,  to  his  family,  to  the  Parlia- 


52  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

ment,  on  the  homely  occasions  of  domestic  Hfe,  in  the 
time  of  pubHc  peril,  in  the  day  of  battle,  in  the  day  of 
crowning  victory ;  this  is  the  spirit  by  which  his  soul  is 
possessed.  All  work  is  done  by  a  divine  leading.  He 
expresses  lively  indignation  with  the  Scottish  minis- 
ters, because  they  dared  to  speak  of  the  battle  of  Dun- 
bar, that  marvelous  dispensation,  that  mighty  and 
strange  appearance  of  God's,  as  a  mere  "event."  So. 
too.  he  warns  the  Irish  that  if  they  resist  they  must  ex- 
pect what  the  providence  of  God  will  cast  upon  them, 
"in  that  which  is  falsely  called  the  Chance  of  War." 


To  displace  Calvinism  the  aims  of  Laud  and  of  wiser 
men  than  Laud  required  a  new  spiritual  basis,  and  this 
was  found  in  the  doctrines  of  the  Dutch  Arminius. 
They  had  arisen  in  Holland  at  the  beginning  of  the 
century,  marking  there  a  liberal  and  rationalist  reac- 
tion against  Calvinist  rigor,  and  they  were  now  wel- 
comed by  the  Laudians  as  bringing  a  needed  keystone 
to  the  quaking  double  arch  of  church  and  state.  Ar- 
minianism  had  been  condemned  at  the  Synod  of  Dort 
(1619)  ;  but  as  a  half-way  house  between  Catholicism 
on  the  one  hand  and  Calvinism  on  the  other,  it  met  a 
want  in  the  minds  of  a  rising  generation  in  England 
who  disliked  Rome  and  Geneva  equally,  and  sought  to 
found  an  Anglo-Catholic  school  of  their  own.  Laud 
concerned  himself  much  less  with  the  theology  than 
with  the  latent  politics  of  Arminianism.  and  in  fact  he 
usually  denied  that  he  was  an  x\rminian.  He  said,  as 
in  truth  many  others  in  all  times  and  places  might  have 
said,  that  the  question  was  one  beyond  his  faculties. 
It  was  as  statesman  rather  than  as  keeper  of  the  faith 


PURITANISM    AND   THE    STATE         53 

that  he  discerned  the  bearings  of  the  great  Dutch 
heresy,  which  was  to  permeate  the  Church  of  England 
for  many  a  generation  to  come.  In  Arminianism  Pre- 
destination was  countered  by  Free  Will;  implacable 
Necessity  by  room  for  merciful  Contingency;  Man  the 
Machine  by  Man  the  self-determining  Agent,  using 
means,  observing  conditions.  How  it  is  that  these 
strong  currents  and  cross-currents  of  divinity  land 
men  at  the  two  antipodes  in  politics,  which  seem  out 
of  all  visible  relation  with  divinity,  we  need  not  here 
attempt  to  trace.  Unseen,  non-logical,  fugitive,  and 
subtle  are  the  threads  and  fine  filaments  of  air  that  draw 
opinion  to  opinion.  They  are  like  the  occult  affinities 
of  the  alchemist,  the  curious  sympathies  of  old  phy- 
sicians, or  the  attraction  of  hidden  magnets.  All  his- 
tory shows  us  how  theological  ideas  abound  in  political 
aspects  to  match,  and  Arminianism,  which  in  Holland 
itself  had  sprung  into  vogue  in  connection  with  the 
political  dispute  between  Barneveldt  and  Prince  Mau- 
rice, rapidly  became  in  England  the  corner-stone  of 
faith  in  a  hierarchy,  a  ceremonial  church,  and  a  mon- 
archy. This  is  not  the  less  true  because  in  time  the 
course  of  events  drew  some  of  the  Presbyterian  pha- 
lanx further  away  from  Calvinism  than  they  would 
have  thought  possible  in  earlier  days,  when,  like  other 
Puritans,  they  deemed  Arminianism  no  better  than  a 
fore-court  of  popery,  atheism,  Socinianism,  and  all  the 
other  unholy  shrines.  To  the  student  of  opinions 
viewing  the  theological  controversy  of  Cromwell's 
time  with  impartial  eye,  it  is  clear  that,  while  Calvin- 
ism inspired  incomparable  energy,  concentration,  reso- 
lution, the  rival  doctrine  covered  a  wider  range  of 
human  nature,  sounded  more  abiding  depths,  and  com- 
prehended better  all  the  many  varied  conditions  under 
which  the  "poor  worm"  of  Calvin  and  of  Cromwell 


54  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

strives  to  make  the  best  of  itself  and  to  work  out  the 
destinies  of  its  tiny  day.  "Truth,"  said  Arminius, 
"even  theological  truth,  has  been  sunk  in  a  deep  well, 
whence  it  cannot  be  drawn  forth  without  much  effort." 
This  the  wise  world  has  long  found  out.  But  these 
pensive  sayings  are  ill  suited  for  a  time  when  the  naked 
sword  is  out  of  its  sheath.  Each  side  believed  that  it 
was  the  possessor  at  least  of  truth  enough  to  fight  for ; 
and  what  is  peculiar  in  the  struggle  is  that  each  party 
and  sub-division  of  a  party  from  King  Charles  down 
to  the  Leveler  and  the  Fifth  Monarchy  Man,  held  his 
ideal  of  a  church  inseparably  bound  up  with  his  ideal 
of  the  rightly  ordered  state. 


In  the  sardonic  dialogue  upon  these  times  which  he 
called  "Behemoth,"  Hobbes  savs  that  it  is  not  points 
necessary  to  salvation  that  have  raised  all  the  quarrels, 
but  questions  of  authority  and  power  over  the  church, 
or  of  profit  and  honor  to  churchmen.  In  other  words, 
it  has  always  been  far  less  a  question  of  what  to  be- 
lieve, than  of  whom  to  believe.  "All  human  questions, 
even  those  of  theologians,  have  secret  motives  in  the 
conduct  and  character  of  those  who  profess  them" 
( Nisard ) .  Hobbes'  view  may  be  thought  to  lower  the 
dignity  of  conscience,  yet  he  has  many  a  chapter  of 
Western  history  on  his  side.  Disputes  between  ortho- 
dox and  heretic  have  mixed  up  with  mysteries  of  the 
faith  all  the  issues  of  mundane  policy  and  secular  in- 
terest, all  the  strife  of  nationality,  empire,  party,  race, 
dynasty.  A  dogma  becomes  the  watchword  of  a  fac- 
tion ;  a  ceremonial  rite  is  made  the  ensign  for  the  am- 
bition of  statesmen.     The  rival  armies  manoeuver  on 


PURITANISM   AND   THE   STATE         55 

the  theological  or  the  ecclesiastical  field,  but  their  im- 
pulse like  their  purpose  is  political  or  personal.  It 
was  so  in  the  metaphysical  conflicts  that  tore  the  world 
in  the  third  and  fourth  centuries  of  the  Christian  era, 
and  so  it  was  in  the  controversies  that  swept  over  the 
sixteenth  century  and  the  seventeenth. 

The  center  of  the  storm  in  England  now  came  to  be 
the  question  that  has  vexed  Western  Europe  for  so 
many  generations  down  to  this  hour,  the  cjuestion  who 
is  to  control  the  law  and  constitution  of  the  church. 
The  Pope  and  the  Councils,  answered  the  Guelph;  the 
emperor  answered  the  Ghibelline.  This  was  in  the 
early  middle  age.  In  England  and  France  the  ruling 
power  adopted  a  different  line.  There  kings  and  law- 
yers insisted  that  it  was  for  the  national  or  local  gov- 
ernment to  measure  and  limit  the  authority  of  the 
national  branch  of  the  church  universal.  The  same 
principle  was  followed  by  the  first  reformers  in  Ger- 
many and  Switzerland,  and  by  Henry  VIII  and  Cran- 
mer.  Then  came  a  third  view,  not  Guelph,  nor  Ghib- 
elline, nor  Tudor.  The  need  for  concentration  in 
religion  had  not  disappeared ;  it  had  rather  become 
more  practically  urgent,  for  schism  was  followed  by 
heresy  and  theological  libertinism.  Calvin  at  Geneva 
a  generation  after  Luther,  claimed  for  the  spiritual 
power  independence  of  the  temporal,  just  as  the  Pope 
did,  but  he  pressed  another  scheme  of  religious  organi- 
zation. Without  positively  excluding  bishops,  he 
favored  the  system  by  which  the  spiritual  power  was 
to  reside  in  a  council  of  presbyters,  partly  ministers, 
partly  laymen.  This  was  the  scheme  that  the  strenu- 
ous and  powerful  character  of  John  Knox  had  suc- 
ceeded in  stamping  upon  Scotland.  It  was  also  the 
scheme  that  in  England  was  the  subject  of  the  dispute 
in  Elizabeth's  time  between  Cartwright  and  Whitgift, 


56  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

and  the  main  contention  of  that  famous  admonition  of 
1572  in  which  Puritanism  is  usually  supposed  to  have 
first  taken  definite  shape.  During  the  years  when 
Cromwell  was  attending  to  his  husiness  at  St.  Ives,  this 
reorganization  of  the  chiuxh  upon  the  lines  of  the 
Presbyterian  churches  abroad,  marked  the  direction 
in  which  serious  minds  were  steadily  looking.  But 
with  no  violently  revolutionary  sense  or  intention. 
That  slowly  grew  up  with  events.  Decentralization  was 
the  key  in  church  reform  as  in  political  reform;  the 
association  of  laity  with  bishops,  as  of  commonalty 
with  the  king.  Different  church  questions  hovered  in 
men's  minds,  sometimes  vaguely,  sometimes  w^ith  pre- 
cision, rising  into  prominence  one  day,  dwindling  away 
the  next.  Phase  followed  phase,  and  we  call  the  whole 
the  Puritan  revolution,  just  as  we  give  the  name  of 
Puritan  alike  to  Baxter  and  Hugh  Peters,  to  the  ugly 
superstition  of  Nehemiah  Wallington  and  the  glory  of 
John  Milton — men  with  hardly  a  single  leading  trait  in 
common.  The  Synod  of  Dort  (1619),  which  some 
count  the  best  date  for  the  origin  of  Puritanism,  was 
twofold  in  its  action ;  it  ratified  election  by  grace,  and 
it  dealt  a  resounding  blow^  to  episcopacy.  Other  topics 
of  controversy  indeed  abounded  as  time  went  on. 
^^estment  and  ceremonial,  the  surplice  or  the  gown, 
the  sign  of  the  cross  at  baptism,  altar  or  table,  sitting 
or  kneeling,  no  pagan  names  for  children,  no  anointing 
of  kings  or  bishops — all  these  and  similar  things  were 
matter  of  passionate  discussion,  veiling  grave  differen- 
ces of  faith  under  what  look  like  mere  triflings  about 
indifferent  form.  But  the  power  and  station  of  the 
bishop,  his  temporal  prerogative,  his  coercive  jurisdic- 
tion, his  usurping  arrogance,  his  subserviences  to  the 
crown,  were  wiiat  made  men's  hearts  hot  within  them. 
The  grievance  was  not  speculative  but  actual,  not  a 


PURITANISM   AND   THE   STATE         57 

thing  of  opinion  but  of  experience  and  visible  circum- 
stance. 

The  Reformation  had  barely  touched  the  authority 
of  the  ecclesiastical  courts  though  it  had  rendered  that 
authority  dependent  on  the  civic  power.  Down  to  the 
calling  of  the  Long  Parliament,  the  backslidings  of  the 
laity  no  less  than  of  the  clergy,  in  private  morals  no  less 
than  in  public  observance,  were  by  these  courts  vigi- 
lantly watched  and  rigorously  punished.  The  penalties 
went  beyond  penitential  impressions  on  mind  and  con- 
science, and  clutched  purse  and  person.  The  arch- 
deacon is  the  eye  of  the  bishop,  and  his  court  was  as 
busy  as  the  magistrate  at  Bow  Street.  In  the  twelve 
months  ending  at  the  date  of  the  assembly  of  the  Long 
Parliament,  in  the  archdeacon's  court  in  London  no 
fewer  than  two  thousand  persons  were  brought  up  for 
tippling,  sabbath-breaking,  and  incontinence.  This 
Moral  Police  of  the  Church,  as  it  was  called,  and  the 
energy  of  its  discipline,  had  no  small  share  in  the  un- 
popularity of  the  whole  ecclesiastical  institution. 
Clarendon  says  of  the  clergymen  of  his  day  in  well- 
known  words,  that  "they  understand  the  least,  and 
take  the  worst  measure  of  human  affairs,  of  all  man- 
kind that  can  write  and  read."  In  no  age  have  they 
been  admired  as  magistrates  or  constables.  The  juris- 
diction of  the  court  of  bishop  or  archdeacon  did  not 
exceed  the  powers  of  a  Scottish  kirk-session,  but  there 
was  the  vital  difference  that  the  Scotch  court  was 
democratic  in  the  foundation  of  its  authority,  while 
the  English  court  was  a  privileged  annex  of  monarchy. 

In  loftier  spheres  the  same  aspirations  after  ecclesi- 
astical control  in  temporal  affairs  waxed  bold.  An 
archbishop  was  made  chancellor  of  Scotland.  Juxon, 
the  Bishop  of  London,  was  made  Lord  High  Trea- 
surer of  England.     No  churchman,   says  Laud  com- 


58  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

placently,  has  had  it  since  the  time  of  Henry  the 
Seventh.  The  Chief  Justice  goes  down  to  the  assizes 
in  the  west,  and  issues  an  injunction  to  the  clergy  to 
pubHsh  certain  judicial  orders  against  feasts  and 
wakes.  He  is  promptly  called  up  by  Laud  for  en- 
croaching on  church  jurisdiction.  The  king  com- 
mands the  Chief  Justice  to  recall  the  orders.  He 
disobeys,  and  is  again  brought  before  the  council, 
where  Laud  gives  him  such  a  rating  that  he  comes  out 
in  tears. 

The  issue  was  raised  in  its  most  direct  form  (No- 
vember, 1628)  in  the  imperious  declaration  that  stands 
prefixed  to  the  thirty-nine  articles  in  the  Prayer  Book 
of  this  day.  The  church-goer  of  our  time,  as  in  a  list- 
less moment  he  may  hit  upon  this  dead  page,  should 
know  what  indignant  fires  it  once  kindled  in  the  breasts 
of  his  forefathers.  To  them  it  seemed  the  signal  for 
quenching  truth,  for  silencing  the  inward  voice,  for 
spreading  darkness  over  the  sanctuary  of  the  soul. 
The  king  announces  that  it  is  his  duty  not  to  suffer  un- 
necessary disputations  or  questions  to  be  raised.  He 
commands  all  further  curious  search  beyond  the  true, 
usual,  literal  meaning  of  the  articles  to  be  laid  aside. 
Any  uni\'ersity  teacher  who  fixes  a  new  sense  to  one  of 
the  articles,  will  be  visited  by  the  displeasure  of  the 
king  and  the  censure  of  the  church ;  and  it  is  for  the 
convocation  of  the  bishops  and  clergy  alone,  with 
license  under  the  king's  broad  seal,  to  do  whatever 
might  be  needed  in  respect  of  doctrine  and  discipline. 
Shortly  before  the  accession  of  Charles  the  same 
spirit  of  the  hierarchy  had  shown  itself  in  notable 
instructions.  Nobody  under  a  bishop  or  a  dean  was 
to  presume  to  preach  in  any  general  auditory  the  deep 
points  of  predestination,  election,  reprobation,  or  of 
the  universality,  resistibility,  or  irresistibility  of  divine 


PURITANISM   AND   THE   STATE         59 

grace.  But  then  these  were  the  very  points  that 
thinking  men  were  interested  in.  To  remove  them  out 
of  the  area  of  pubHc  discussion,  while  the  declaration 
about  the  articles  was  meant  in  due  time  to  strip  them 
of  their  Calvinistic  sense,  was  to  assert  the  royal  su- 
premacy in  its  most  odious  and  intolerable  shape.  The 
result  was  what  might  have  been  expected.  Sacred 
things  and  secular  became  one  interest.  Civil  politics 
and  ecclesiastical  grew  to  be  the  same.  Tonnage  and 
poundage  and  predestination,  ship-money  and  election, 
habeas  corpus  and  justification  by  faith,  all  fell  into 
line.  The  control  of  Parliament  over  convocation  was 
as  cherished  a  doctrine  as  its  control  over  the  ex- 
chequer. As  for  toleration,  this  had  hardly  yet  come 
into  sight.  Of  respect  for  right  of  conscience  as  a 
conviction,  and  for  free  discussion  as  a  principle,  there 
was  at  this  stage  hardly  more  on  one  side  than  on  the 
other.  Without  a  qualm  the  very  Parliament  that 
fought  with  such  valor  for  the  Petition  of  Right 
(March,  1629)  declared  that  anybody  who  should  be 
seen  to  extend  or  introduce  any  opinion,  whether  papis- 
tical, Arminian,  or  other,  disagreeing  from  the  true 
and  orthodox  church,  should  be  deemed  a  capital 
enemy  of  the  kingdom  and  commonwealth. 

It  was  political  and  military  events  that  forced  a 
revolution  in  ecclesiastical  ideas.  Changing  needs 
gradually  brought  out  the  latent  social  applications  of 
a  Puritan  creed,  and  on  the  double  base  rose  a  demo- 
cratic party  in  a  modern  sense,  the  first  in  the  history 
of  English  politics.  Until  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  independency  was  a  designation  hardly 
used,  and  Cromwell  himself  at  first  rejected  it,  per- 
haps with  the  wise  instinct  of  the  practical  statesman 
against  being  too  quick  to  assume  a  compromising 
badge  before  occasion  positively  forces.     He  was  never 


6o  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

much  of  a  democrat,  but  the  same  may  be  said  of 
many,  if  not  most,  of  those  whom  democracy  has  used 
to  do  its  business.  Calvinism  and  Jacobinism  sprang 
aHke  from  France,  from  the  same  land  of  absolute 
ideals,  and  Cromwell  was  in  time  already  to  hear  in 
full  blast  from  the  grim  lips  of  his  military  saints  the 
right  of  man  as  all  the  world  knew  them  so  well  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  later. 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE    INTERIM 


WENTWORTH  said  in  his  early  days  that  it  was 
ill  contending  with  the  king  outside  of  Parlia- 
ment. Acting  on  this  maxim,  the  popular  leaders, 
with  the  famous  exception  of  Hampden,  watched  the 
king's  despotic  courses  for  eleven  years  (1629-40) 
without  much  public  question.  Duties  were  levied 
by  royal  authority  alone.  Monopolies  were  extended 
over  all  the  articles  of  most  universal  consumption. 
The  same  sort  of  inquisition  into  title  that  Wentworth 
had  practised  m  Ireland  was  applied  in  England,  under 
circumstances  of  less  enormity  yet  so  oppressively  that 
the  people  of  quality  and  honor,  as  Clarendon  calls 
them,  upon  whom  the  burden  of  such  proceedings 
mainly  fell,  did  not  forget  it  when  the  day  of  reckon- 
ing came.  The  Star  Chamber,  the  Council,  and  the 
Court  of  High  Commission,  whose  province  affected 
affairs  ecclesiastical,  widened  the  area  of  their  arbi- 
trary jurisdiction,  invaded  the  province  of  the  regular 
courts,  and  inflicted  barbarous  punishments.  Every- 
body knows  the  cases  of  Leighton,  of  Lilburne,  of 
Prynne,  Burton,  and  Bastwick ;  how  for  writing  books 
against  prelacy,  or  play-acting,  or  Romish  innovations 
by  church  dignitaries,  men  of  education  and  learned 
61 


62  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

professions  were  set  in  the  pillory,  had  their  ears  cut 
off,  their  noses  slit,  their  cheeks  branded,  were  heavily 
fined,  and  flung  into  prison  for  so  long  as  the  king 
chose  to  keep  them  there. 

Even  these  gross  outrages  on  personal  right  did  less 
to  rouse  indignation  than  the  exaction  of  ship-money; 
nor  did  the  exaction  of  the  impost  itself  create  so  much 
alarm  as  the  doctrines  advanced  by  servile  judges  in 
its  vindication,  using  "a  logic  that  left  no  man  any- 
thing that  he  might  call  his  own.''  The  famous  Italian 
who  has  earned  so  bad  a  name  in  the  world  for  lower- 
ing the  standards  of  public  virtue  and  human  self- 
esteem,  said  that  men  sooner  forget  the  slaying  of  a 
father  than  the  taking  of  their  property.  But  Charles, 
with  the  best  will  to  play  the  Machiavellian  if  he  had 
known  how,  never  more  than  half  learned  the  lessons 
of  the  part. 

The  general  alarms  led  to  passive  resistance  in 
Essex,  Devonshire,  Oxfordshire.  A  stout-hearted 
merchant  of  the  City  of  London  brought  the  matter  on 
a  suit  for  false  imprisonment  before  the  King's  Bench. 
Here  one  of  the  judges  actually  laid  down  the  doctrine 
that  there  is  a  rule  of  law  and  a  rule  of  government,  and 
that  many  things  which  might  not  be  done  by  the  rule 
of  law  maybe  done  by  the  rule  of  government.  In  other 
words,  law  must  be  tempered  by  reason  of  state,  which 
is  as  good  as  to  say  no  law.  With  more  solemnity 
the  lawfulness  of  the  tax  was  argued  in  the  famous 
case  of  John  Hampden  for  a  fortnight  (1637)  before 
the  twelve  judges  in  the  Exchequer  Chamber.  The 
result  was  equally  fatal  to  that  principle  of  no  taxation 
without  assent  of  Parliament,  to  which  the  king  had 
formally  subscribed  in  passing  the  Petition  of  Right. 
The  decision  against  Hampden  contained  the  startling 
propositions   that  no  statute  can  bar  a  king  of  his 


THE   INTERIM  63 

regality;  that  statutes  taking  away  his  royal  power  in 
defense  of  his  kingdom  are  void ;  and  that  the  king  has 
an  absokite  authority  to  dispense  with  any  law  in  cases 
of  necessity,  and  of  this  necessity  he  must  be  the  judge. 
This  decision  has  been  justly  called  one  of  the  great 
events  of  English  history. 

Both  the  system  of  government  and  its  temper 
were  designated  by  Strafford  and  Laud  under  the  cant 
watchword  of  Thorough.  As  a  system  it  meant  per- 
sonal rule  in  the  state,  and  an  authority  beyond  the  law 
courts  in  the  church.  In  respect  of  political  temper  it 
meant  the  prosecution  of  the  system  through  thick  and 
thin,  without  fainting  or  flinching,  without  half-meas- 
ures or  timorous  stumbling;  it  meant  vigilance,  dex- 
terity, relentless  energy.  Such  was  Thorough.  The 
counter- watchword  was  as  good.  If  this  was  the  bat- 
tle-cry of  the  court,  Root-and-Branch  gradually  be- 
came the  inspiring  principle  of  reform  as  it  un- 
consciously drifted  into  revolution.  Things  went 
curiously  slowly.  The  country  in  the  face  of  this  con- 
spiracy against  law  and  usage  lay  to  all  appearance 
profoundly  still.  No  active  resistance  was  attempted, 
or  even  whispered.  Pym  kept  unbroken  silence.  Of 
Cromwell  we  have  hardly  a  glimpse,  and  he  seems  to 
have  taken  the  long  years  of  interregnum  as  patiently 
as  most  of  his  neighbors.  After  some  short  unquiet- 
ness  of  the  people,  says  Clarendon,  'there  quickly  fol- 
lowed so  excellent  a  composure  throughout  the  whole 
kingdom  that  the  like  peace  and  tranquillity  for  ten 
years  was  never  enjoyed  by  any  nation."  As  we  shall 
see,  when  after  eleven  years  of  misgovernment  a  Par- 
liament was  izhosen,  it  was  found  too  moderate  for  its 
work. 

It  was  in  his  native  country  that  Charles  first  came 
into  direct  conflict  with  the  religious  fervor  that  was 


64  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

to  destroy  him.  It  only  needed  a  spark  to  set  in  flames 
the  fabric  that  king  and  archbishop  were  striving  to 
rear  in  England.  This  spark  flew  over  the  border 
from  Scotland,  where  Charles  and  Laud  played  with 
fire.  In  Scotland  the  Reformation  had  been  a  popular 
movement,  springing  from  new  and  deepened  religious 
experience  and  sense  of  individual  responsibility  in  the 
hearts  and  minds  of  the  common  people.  Bishops  had 
not  ceased  to  exist,  but  their  authority  was  little  more 
than  shadow.  By  the  most  fatal  of  the  many  infatu- 
ations of  his  life,  Charles  tried  (1637)  to  make  the 
shadow  substance,  and  to  introduce  canons  and  a  ser- 
vice-book framed  by  Laud  and  his  friends  in  England. 
Infatuation  as  it  was,  policy  was  the  prompter. 
Charles,  Strafford,  and  Laud  all  felt  that  the  bonds 
between  the  three  kingdoms  were  dangerously  loose, 
slender,  troublesome,  and  uncertain.  As  Cromwell 
too  perceived  when  his  time  came,  so  these  three 
understood  the  need  for  union  on  closer  terms  between 
England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  and  in  accordance 
with  the  mental  fashion  of  the  time  they  regarded 
ecclesiastical  uniformity  as  the  key  to  political  unity. 
Some  Scottish  historians  have  held  that  the  royal  in- 
novations might  have  secured  silent  and  gradual  acqui- 
escence in  time,  if  no  compulsion  had  been  used.  Pa- 
tience, alas,  is  the  last  lesson  that  statesmen,  rulers,  or 
peoples  can  be  brought  to  learn.  As  it  was  the  rugged 
Scots  broke  out  in  violent  revolt,  and  it  spread  like 
flame  through  their  kingdom.  Almost  the  whole 
nation  hastened  to  subscribe  that  famous  National 
Covenant  (February  27,  1638),  which,  even  as  we 
read  it  in  these  cool  and  far-off  days,  is  still  vibrating 
and  alive  with  all  the  passion,  the  faithfulness,  the 
wrath,  that  inspired  the  thousands  of  stern  fanatics 


s     ^ 

r 


9    ?■ 


'^, 


■iwii 


3    ^- 


s.    .■ 


THE   INTERIM  65 

who  set  their  hands  to  it.  Its  fierce  enumeration  of 
the  abhorred  doctrines  and  practices  of  Rome,  its  scorn- 
ful maledictions  on  them,  are  hot  with  the  same  lurid 
flame  as  glows  in  the  retaliatory  lists  of  heresy  issued 
from  age  to  age  from  Rome  itself.  It  is  in  this  Na- 
tional Covenant  of  1638  that  we  find  ourselves  at  the 
heart  and  central  fire  of  militant  Puritanism  of  the 
seventeenth  century. 

It  is  a  curious  thing  that  people  in  England  were  so 
little  alive  to  what  was  going  on  in  Scotland  until 
the  storm  broke.  Nobody  cared  to  know  anything 
about  Scotland,  and  they  were  both  more  interested 
and  better  informed  as  to  what  was  passing  in  Ger- 
many or  Poland  than  what  happened  across  the  border. 
The  king  handled  Scotch  affairs  himself,  with  two  or 
three  Scotch  nobles,  and  things  had  come  to  extrem- 
ities before  he  opened  them  either  to  his  counselors  or 
to  the  public  in  England.  An  armed  force  of  coven- 
anted Scots  was  set  in  motion  toward  the  border.  The 
king  advanced  to  York,  and  there  heard  such  news  of 
the  obstinacy  of  the  rebels,  of  the  disaffection  of  his 
own  men  to  the  quarrel,  and  of  mischief  that  might 
follow  from  too  close  intercourse  between  Scots  and 
English,  that  in  his  bewilderment  he  sanctioned  the 
pacification  of  Berwick  (June,  1639).  Disputes  arose 
upon  its  terms;  the  Scots  stubbornly  extended  their 
demands;  Richelieu  secretly  promised  help.  Charles 
summoned  Strafford  to  his  side  from  Ireland,  and  that 
haughty  counselor  told  him  that  the  Scots  must  be 
whipped  into  their  senses  again.  Then  (  Alarch,  1640) 
he  crossed  back  to  Ireland  for  money  and  troops.  War 
between  the  king  and  his  Scots  was  certain,  and  it  was 
the  necessities  of  this  war  that  led  to  the  first  step  in 
saving  the  freedom  of  England. 

s 


66  OLIVER  CROMWELL 


The  king,  in  straits  that  left  him  no  choice,  sought 
aid  from  Parhament.  The  Short  ParHament,  that 
now  assembled,  definitely  opens  the  first  great  chapter 
of  the  Revolution.  After  twenty  years  the  Restor- 
ation closed  it.  Eighteen  of  these  years  are  the  public 
life  of  Cromwell.  The  movement,  it  is  true,  that 
seemed  to  begin  in  1640,  itself  flowed  from  forces  that 
had  been  slowly  gathering  since  the  death  of  Elizabeth, 
just  as  the  Restoration  closing  one  chapter  prepared 
another  that  ended  in  1688.  But  the  twenty  years 
from  1640  to  1660  mark  a  continuous  journey,  with 
definite  beginning  and  end. 

Cromwell  was  chosen  one  of  the  two  members  for 
the  borough  of  Cambridge,  "the  greatest  part  of  the 
burgesses  being  present  in  the  hall."  The  Short  Par- 
liament sat  only  for  three  weeks  (April  13  to  May  5), 
and  its  first  proceeding  disclosed  that  eleven  years  had 
not  cooled  the  quarrel.  But  the  new  Parliament  was 
essentially  moderate  and  loyal,  and  this,  as  I  have  said, 
is  another  proof  how  little  of  general  exasperation  the 
eleven  years  of  misrule  without  a  Parliament  had  pro- 
duced. The  veteran  Coke  was  dead.  Wentworth 
from  firm  friend  had  turned  fierce  enemy.  Sir  John 
Eliot  was  gone.  The  rigors  of  his  prison-house  in  the 
Tower  could  not  break  that  dauntless  spirit,  but  they 
killed  him.  The  king  knew  well  what  he  was  doing, 
and  even  carried  his  vindictiveness  beyond  death. 
Eliot's  young  son  petitioned  the  king  that  he  might 
carry  the  remains  to  Cornwall  to  lie  with  those  of  his 
ancestors.  Charles  wrote  on  the  petition :  "Let  Sir 
John  Eliot's  body  be  buried  in  the  parish  of  that  church 
where  he  died" ;  and  his  ashes  lay  unmarked  in  the 
chapel  of  the  Tower. 


THE   INTERIM  67 

Eliot's  comrades  were  left  with  Pym  at  their  head, 
and  before  long  they  warned  the  king  in  words  des- 
tined to  bear  a  terrible  meaning  that  Eliot's  blood  still 
cried  for  vengeance  or  for  repentance.  The  case  had 
to  some  extent  passed  out  of  the  hands  of  lawyers  like 
Selden  and  antiquaries  like  Cotton.  Burke,  in  deal- 
ing with  the  American  Revolution,  makes  some 
weighty  comments  upon  the  fact  that  the  greater  num- 
ber of  the  deputies  sent  to  the  first  Revolutionary  Con- 
gress were  lawyers;  and  the  legal  character  of  the 
vindication  of  civil  freedom  from  the  accession  of 
James  I  or  earlier,  was  not  wholly  lost  at  Westminster 
until  the  death  of  Charles  I.  But  just  as  the  lawyers 
had  eclipsed  the  authority  of  the  churchmen,  so  now 
they  were  themselves  displaced  by  country  gentlemen 
with  gifts  of  Parliamentary  statesm.anship.  Of  this 
new  type  Pym  was  a  commanding  instance.  Pym  was 
not  below  Eliot  in  zeal,  and  he  was  better  than  Eliot 
in  measure,  in  judgment,  and  in  sagacious  instinct  for 
action.  He  instantly  sounded  the  note.  The  redress 
of  grievances  must  go  before  the  grant  of  a  shilling 
either  for  the  Scotch  war  or  anything  else.  The  claim 
of  Parliament  over  prerogative  was  raised  in  louder 
tones  than  had  ever  been  heard  in  English  constitu- 
tional history  before.  The  king  supposed  that  his 
proof  that  the  Scots  were  trying  to  secure  aid  from 
France  would  kindle  the  flame  of  old  national  antipa- 
thies. England  loved  neither  Frenchmen  nor  Scots. 
Nations,  for  that  matter,  do  not  often  love  one  another. 
But  the  English  leaders  knew  the  emergency,  knew 
that  the  cause  of  the  Scots  was  their  own,  and  were  as 
ready  to  seek  aid  from  Frenchmen  as  their  successors  a 
generation  later  were  to  seek  aid  from  Dutchmen. 
The  perception  every  hour  became  clearer  that  the 
cause  of  the  Scots  was  the  cause  of  England,  and  with 


68  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

wise  courage  the  patriots  resolved  to  address  the  king 
against  a  war  with  his  Scottish  subjects.  When  this 
intention  reached  his  ears,  though  he  must  have  fore- 
seen a  move  so  certain  to  fit  the  ParHamentary  tactics 
of  the  hour,  Charles  flew  into  a  passion,  called  a  coun- 
cil for  six  o'clock  the  next  morning,  and  apparently 
with  not  more  than  the  hesitating  approval  of  Straf- 
ford, hurriedly  determined  to  dissolve  the  Parliament. 
As  usual  with  him  this  important  decision  was  due  to 
levity,  and  not  to  calculation.  Before  night  he  found 
out  his  mistake,  and  was  impatiently  asking  whether 
he  could  not  recall  the  body  that  he  had  just  dismissed. 

The  spirits  of  his  opponents  rose.  Things,  they 
argued,  must  be  worse  before  they  could  be  better. 
This  Parliament,  they  said,  would  never  have  done 
what  was  necessary  to  be  done.  Another  Parliament 
was  inevitable ;  then  their  turn  at  last  would  come ; 
then  they  would  meet  the  king  and  his  ministers  with 
their  own  daring  watchword ;  then  in  good  earnest 
they  would  press  on  for  Thorough  with  another  and 
an  unexpected  meaning.  For  six  months  the  king's 
position  became  every  day  more  desperate.  All  the 
wheels  of  prerogative  were  set  in  motion  to  grind  out 
gold.  The  sheriffs  and  the  bailiffs  squeezed  only 
driblets  of  ship-money.  Even  the  judges  grew  un- 
easy. Charles  urged  the  City  for  loans,  and  threw 
aldermen  into  prison  for  refusing;  but  the  City  was  the 
Puritan  stronghold,  and  was  not  to  be  frightened. 
He  begged  from  France,  from  Spain,  from  the 
moneyed  men  of  Genoa,  and  even  from  the  Pope  of 
Rome.  But  neither  pope  nor  king  nor  banker  would 
lend  to  a  borrower  who  had  no  security,  financial, 
military,  or  political.  He  tried  to  debase  the  coinage, 
but  people  refused  in  fury  to  take  copper  for  silver  or 
threepence  for  a  shilling. 

It  was  idle  for  Strafford  to  tell  either  the  London 


THE  INTERIM  69 

citizens  or  the  Privy  Council  of  the  unsparing  devices 
by  which  the  King  of  France  filled  his  treasury. 
Whether,  if  Charles  had  either  himself  possessed  the 
iron  will,  the  capacious  grasp,  the  deep  craft  and  policy 
of  Richelieu,  or  had  committed  himself  wholly  into  the 
hands  of  StrafTord,  who  was  endowed  with  some  of 
Richelieu's  essentials  of  mastery,  the  final  event  would 
have  been  different,  is  an  interesting  problem  for  his- 
toric rumination.  As  it  was,  the  whole  policy  of 
Thorough  fell  into  ruins.  The  trained  bands  were 
called  out  and  commissions  of  array  were  issued,  but 
they  only  spread  distraction.  The  convocation  of  the 
clergy  heightened  the  general  irritation,  not  only  by 
continuing  against  the  constitution  to  sit  after  the 
Parliament  had  disappeared,  but  by  framing  new 
canons  about  the  eastern  position  and  other  vexed 
points  of  ceremony ;  by  proclaiming  the  order  of  kings 
to  be  sacred  and  of  divine  right ;  and  finally  by  winding 
up  their  unlawful  labors  with  the  imposition  upon 
large  orders  of  important  laymen  of  an  oath  never  to 
assent  to  alter  the  government  of  the  church  "by  arch- 
bishops, bishops,  deans,  etc." — an  unhappy  and  ran- 
dom conclusion  that  provoked  much  rude  anger  and 
derision.  This  proceeding  raised  in  its  most  direct 
form  the  central  cjuestion  whether  under  cover  of  the 
royal  supremacy  the  clergy  were  to  bear  rule  indepen- 
dent of  Parliament.  Even  Laud  never  carried  impolicy 
further.  Rioters  threatened  the  palace  at  Lambeth, 
and  the  archbishop,  though  no  coward,  was  forced  to 
flee  for  refuge  to  Whitehall.  Meanwhile  the  king's 
military  force,  disaffected,  ill  disciplined,  ill  paid,  and 
ill  accoutred,  was  no  match  for  the  invaders.  The 
Scots  crossed  the  Tyne,  beat  the  English  at  Newburn 
(August  28),  occupied  Newcastle,  and  pushed  on  to 
Durham  and  the  Tees.  There  seemed  to  be  nothing 
to  hinder  their  march  to  London,  wrote  an  observer ; 


70  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

people  were  distracted  as  if  the  day  of  judgment  were 
hourly  expected. 

Charles  again  recalled  Strafi'ord  from  Ireland,  and 
that  courageous  genius  acquired  as  much  ascendancy 
as  the  levity  of  the  king  would  allow.  Never  came 
any  man,  he  says,  to  so  lost  a  business :  the  army  alto- 
gether unexercised  and  improvided  of  all  necessaries, 
the  horse  all  cowardly,  a  universal  affright  in  all,  a 
general  disaffection  to  the  king's  service,  none  sen- 
sible of  his  dishonor.  Nothing  could  be  gloomier. 
A  Parliament  could  not  be  avoided,  as  Pym  and  his 
friends  had  foreseen,  and  they  brought  to  bear,  both 
through  their  allies  among  the  peers  and  by  popular 
petitions,  a  pressure  that  Charles  was  powerless  to 
resist.  On  the  very  eve  of  the  final  resolve,  the  king 
had  some  reason  to  suspect  that  what  had  already  hap- 
pened in  Scotland  might  easily  happen  in  England, 
and  that  if  he  did  not  himself  call  a  Parliament,  one 
would  be  held  without  him. 

The  calling  of  the  Long  Parliament  marked  for  the 
king  his  first  great  humiliation.  The  depth  of  the 
humiliation  only  made  future  conflict  more  certain. 
E\erybody  knew  that  even  without  any  deep-laid  or 
sinister  design  Charles's  own  instability  of  nature,  the 
secret  convictions  of  his  conscience,  the  intrinsic  plau- 
sibilities of  ancestral  kingship,  and  the  temptation  of 
accident,  would  surely  draw  him  on  to  try  his  fortune 
again.  What  was  in  appearance  a  step  toward  har- 
monious cooperation  for  the  good  government  of  the 
three  kingdoms,  was  in  truth  the  set  opening  of  a  des- 
perate pitched  battle,  and  it  is  certain  that  neither  king 
nor  Parliament  had  ever  counted  up  the  chances  of  the 
future.  Some  would  hold  that  most  of  the  conspicu- 
ous political  contests  of  history  have  been  undertaken 
upon  the  like  uncalculating  terms. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE    LONG    PARLIAMENT 


THE  elections  showed  how  Charles  had  failed  to 
gage  the  humor  of  his  people.  Nearly  three  hun- 
dred of  the  four  hundred  and  ninety  members  who  had 
sat  in  the  Short  Parliament  were  chosen  over  again. 
Not  one  of  those  who  had  then  made  a  mark  in  oppo- 
sition was  rejected,  and  the  new  members  were  be- 
lieved almost  to  a  man  to  belong  in  one  degree  or 
another  to  the  popular  party.  Of  the  five  hundred 
names  that  made  up  the  roll  of  the  House  of  Commons 
at  the  beginning  of  the  Long  Parliament,  the  counties 
returned  only  ninety-one,  while  the  boroughs  returned 
four  hundred  and  five,  and  it  was  in  the  boroughs  that 
hostility  to  the  policy  of  the  court  was  the  sharpest. 
Yet  few  of  the  Commons  belonged  to  the  trading  class. 
It  could  not  be  otherwise  when  more  than  four  fifths  of 
the  population  lived  in  the  country,  when  there  were 
only  four  considerable  towns  outside  of  London,  and 
when  the  rural  classes  were  supreme.  A  glance  at  the 
list  shows  us  Widdringtons  and  Fenwicks  from  North- 
umberland ;  Curzons  from  Derbyshire ;  Curwens  from 
Cumberland;  Ashtons,  Leighs,  Shuttleworths,  Bridg- 
mans,  from  Lancashire;  Lyttons  and  Cecils  from 
Herts ;  Derings  and  Knatchbulls  from  Kent ;  Ingrams, 

71 


72  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

W'entworths,  Cholmeleys,  Danbys,  Fairfaxes,  from  the 
thirty  seats  in  Yorkshire;  Grenvilles,  Edgcombes, 
Biillers,  Rolles,  Godolphins,  Vyvyans,  Northcotes, 
Trevors,  Carews,  from  the  four-and-forty  boroughs 
of  Cornwall. 

These  and  many  another  historic  name  make  the  list 
to-day  read  like  a  catalogue  of  the  existing  county  fam- 
ilies, and  it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  the 
House  of  Lords  now  contains  a  smaller  proportion  of 
ancient  blood  than  the  famous  lineages  that  figure  in 
the  roll  of  the  great  revolutionary  House  of  Commons. 
It  was  essentially  an  aristocratic  and  not  a  popular 
house,  as  became  only  too  clear  five  or  six  years  later, 
when  Levelers  and  Soldiers  came  into  the  field  of  poli- 
tics. The  Long  Parliament  was  made  up  of  the  very 
flower  of  the  English  gentry  and  the  educated  laity. 
A  modern  conservati\'e  writer  describes  as  the  great 
enigma,  the  question  how  this  phalanx  of  country 
gentlemen,  of  the  best  blood  of  England,  belonging  to 
a  class  of  strongly  conservative  instincts  and  remark- 
able for  their  attachment  to  the  crown,  should  have 
been  for  so  long  the  tools  of  subtle  lawyers  and  repub- 
lican theorists,  and  then  have  ended  by  acquiescing 
in  the  overthrow  of  the  Parliamentary  constitution,  of 
which  they  had  proclaimed  themselves  the  defenders. 
It  is  curious  too  how  many  of  the  leaders  came  from 
that  ancient  seat  of  learning  which  was  so  soon  to  be- 
come and  for  so  long  remained  the  center  of  all  who 
held  for  church  and  king.  Selden  was  a  member  for 
the  University  of  Oxford,  and  Pym,  Fiennes,  Marten, 
Vane,  were  all  of  them  Oxford  men.  as  well  as  Hyde. 
Falkland.  Digby,  and  others  who  in  time  passed  over 
to  the  royal  camp.  A  student  of  our  day  has  re- 
marked that  these  men  collectively  represented  a 
larger  relative  proportion  of  the  best  intellect  of  the 


From  the  portrait  by  Gerard  Soest  in  the 

National  Portrait  Gallery. 

EDWARD    HYDE,  ' 

FIRST   EARL   OF    CLARENDON. 

From  the  oiiginal  portrait  at  Chequers 

Court,  by  permission  of 

Mrs.  Frankland-RusselUAstley. 

LUCIUS  CARV,  VISCOUNT  FALKLAND. 


After  a  portrait  by  Van  Dyck. 
GEORGE    DIGBY,   EARL   OF    BRISTOL. 


JOHN    SELDEX. 


THE  LONG   PARLIAMENT  n 

country,  of  its  energy  and  talents,  than  is  looked  for 
now  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Whatever  may  be 
the  reply  to  the  delicate  question  so  stated,  it  is  at  any 
rate  true  that  of  Englishmen  then  alive  and  of  mature 
powers  only  two  famous  names  are  missing,  Milton  and 
Hobbes.  When  the  Parliament  opened  Dryden  was 
a  boy  at  Westminster  School ;  the  future  author  of 
"Pilgrim's  Progress,"  a  lad  of  twelve,  was  mending 
pots  and  kettles  in  Bedfordshire;  and  Locke,  the  future 
defender  of  the  emancipating  principles  that  now  put 
on  practical  shape  and  power,  was  a  boy  of  eight. 
Newton  was  not  born  until  1642,  a  couple  of  months 
after  the  first  clash  of  arms  at  Edgehill. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  Rebellion  the  peers  had 
work  to  do  not  any  less  important  than  the  Commons, 
and  for  a  time,  though  they  had  none  of  the  spirit  of 
the  old  barons  at  Runnymede,  they  were  in  tolerable 
agreement  with  the  views  and  temper  of  the  lower 
House.  The  temporal  peers  were  a  hundred  and 
twenty-three,  and  the  lords  spiritual  twenty-six,  of 
whom,  however,  when  the  Parliament  got  really  to 
business,  no  more  than  eighteen  remained.  Alike  in 
public  spirit  and  in  attainments  the  average  of  the 
House  of  Lords  was  undoubtedly  high.  Like  other 
aristocracies  in  the  seventeenth  century,  the  English 
nobles  were  no  friends  to  high-flying  ecclesiastical  pre- 
tensions, and  like  other  aristocrats  they  were  not  with- 
out many  jealousies  and  grievances  of  their  own 
against  the  power  of  the  crown.  Another  remark  is 
worth  making.  Either  history  or  knowledge  of  hu- 
man nature  might  teach  us  that  great  nobles  often  take 
the  popular  side  without  dropping  any  of  the  preten- 
sions of  class  in  their  hearts,  and  it  is  not  mere  peevish- 
ness when  the  royalist  historian  says  that  Lord  Say 
and  Sele  was  as  proud  of  his  quality  and  as  pleased  to 


74  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

be  distinguished  from  others  by  his  title  as  any  man 
aHve. 

OHver  Cromwell  was  again  returned  for  the  bor- 
ough of  Cambridge.  The  extraordinary  circumstance 
has  been  brought  out  that  at  the  meeting  of  the  Long 
Parliament  Cromwell  and  Hampden  between  them 
could  count  no  fewer  than  seventeen  relatives  and  con- 
nections: and  by  1647  ^^^^  figure  had  risen  from  seven- 
teen to  twenty-three.  When  the  day  of  retribution 
came  eight  years  later,  out  of  the  fifty-nine  names  on 
the  king's  death-warrant,  ten  were  kinsmen  of  Oliver, 
and  out  of  the  hundred  and  forty  of  the  king's  judges 
sixteen  were  more  or  less  closely  allied  to  him.  Oliver 
was  now  in  the  middle  of  his  forty-second  year,  and  his 
days  of  homely  peace  had  come  once  for  all  to  an  end. 
Everybody  knows  the  picture  of  him  drawn  by 
a  young  Royalist ;  how  one  morning  he  "perceived  a 
gentleman  speaking,  very  ordinarily  appareled  in  a 
plain  cloth  suit  made  by  an  ill  country  tailor,  with  plain 
linen,  not  very  clean,  and  a  speck  or  two  of  blood  upon 
his  little  band ;  his  hat  without  a  hatband ;  his  stature 
of  a  good  size ;  his  sword  stuck  close  to  his  side ;  his 
countenance  swollen  and  reddish ;  his  voice  sharp  and 
untunable,  his  eloquence  full  of  fervor."  Says  this 
too  fastidious  observer,  "I  sincerely  profess  it  lessened 
much  my  reverence  unto  that  great  council,  for  this 
gentleman  was  very  much  hearkened  unto." 

Another  recorder  of  the  time  describes  "his  body 
as  well  compact  and  strong;  his  stature  of  the  average 
height ;  his  head  so  shaped  as  you  might  see  in  it  both 
a  storehouse  and  shop  of  a  vast  treasury  of  natural 
parts.  His  temper  exceeding  fiery;  but  the  flame  of 
it  kept  down  for  the  most  part,  is  soon  allayed  with 
these  moral  endowments  he  had.     He  was  naturally 


THE  LONG   PARLIAMENT  75 

compassionate  toward  objects  in  distress,  even  to  an 
effeminate  measure ;  though  God  had  made  him  a  heart 
wherein  was  left  httle  room  for  any  fear  but  what  Was 
due  to  Himself,  of  which  there  was  a  large  proportion, 
yet  did  he  exceed  in  tenderness  toward  sufferers." 

"When  he  delivered  his  mind  in  the  House,"  says  a 
third,  going  beyond  the  things  that  catch  the  visual 
eye,  "it  was  with  a  strong  and  masculine  excellence, 
more  able  to  persuade  than  to  be  persuaded.  His  ex- 
pressions were  hardy,  opinions  resolute,  asseverations 
grave  and  vehement,  always  intermixed  (Andronicus- 
like)  with  sentences  of  Scripture,  to  give  them  the 
greater  weight,  and  the  better  to  insinuate  into  the 
affections  of  the  people.  He  expressed  himself  with 
some  kind  of  passion,  but  with  such  a  commanding, 
wise  deportment  till,  at  his  pleasure,  he  governed  and 
swayed  the  House,  as  he  had  most  times  the  leading 
voice.  Those  who  find  no  such  wonders  in  his  speeches 
may  find  it  in  the  effect  of  them." 

We  have  yet  another  picture  of  the  inner  qualities 
of  the  formidable  man,  drawn  by  the  skilled  pencil  of 
Clarendon.  In  the  early  days  of  the  Parliament, 
Cromwell  sat  on  a  Parliamentary  committee  to  ex- 
amine a  case  of  inclosure  of  waste  in  his  native  county. 
The  townsmen,  it  was  allowed,  had  come  in  a  riotous 
and  w^arlike  manner  with  sound  of  drum  and  had 
beaten  down  the  obnoxious  fences.  Such  doings  have 
been  often  heard  of,  but  perhaps  not  half  so  often  as 
they  should  have  been,  even  down  to  our  own  day. 
Lord  Manchester,  the  purchaser  of  the  lands  inclosed, 
issued  writs  against  the  offenders,  and  at  the  same  time 
both  he  and  the  aggrieved  commoners  presented  peti- 
tions to  Parliament.  Cromwell  moved  for  a  refer- 
ence   to    a    committee.     Hyde    was    chairman,    and 


76  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

afterward  was  often  heard  to  describe  the  demeanor 
of  his  turbulent  colleague.  The  scene  brings  Oliver 
too  vividly  before  us  ever  to  be  omitted. 

Cromwell,  says  Hyde,  ordered  the  witnesses  and  petidoners 
in  the  method  of  the  proceeding,  and  seconded  and  enlarged 
upon  what  they  said  with  great  passion ;  and  the  witnesses 
and  persons  concerned,  who  were  a  very  rude  kind  of  people, 
interrupted  the  council  and  witnesses  on  the  other  side  with 
great  clamour  when  they  said  anything  that  did  not  please 
them ;  so  that  Mr.  Hyde  was  compelled  to  use  some  sharp  re- 
proofs and  some  threats  to  reduce  them  to  such  a  temper  that 
the  business  might  be  quietly  heard.  Cromwell,  in  great  fury, 
reproached  the  chairman  for  being  partial,  and  that  he  dis- 
countenanced the  witnesses  by  threatening  them ;  the  other 
appealed  to  the  committee,  which  justified  him,  and  declared 
that  he  behaved  himself  as  he  ought  to  do ;  which  more  in- 
flamed him  [Cromwell]  who  was  already  too  much  angry. 
When  upon  any  mention  of  matter  of  fact,  or  of  the  proceed- 
ing before  and  at  the  enclosure,  the  Lord  Mandevil  desired 
to  be  heard,  and  with  great  modesty  related  what  had  been 
done,  or  explained  what  had  been  said,  Mr.  Cromwell  did 
answer  and  reply  upon  him  with  so  much  indecency  and 
rudeness,  and  in  language  so  contrary  and  offensive,  that 
every  man  would  have  thought  that,  as  their  natures  and 
their  manners  were  as  opposite  as  it  was  possible,  so  their 
interest  could  never  have  been  the  same.  In  the  end,  his 
whole  carriage  was  so  tempestuous,  and  his  behaviour  so 
insolent,  that  the  chairman  found  himself  obliged  to  repre- 
hend him,  and  tell  him  that  if  he,  Mr.  Cromwell,  proceeded 
in  the  same  manner,  he,  Mr.  Hyde,  would  presendy  adjourn 
the  committee,  and  the  next  morning  complain  to  the  House 
of  him. 

Such  was  the  outer  Cromwell. 

The  twofold  impulse  of  the  times  has  been  already 


From  the  copy  m  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 
of  the  original  portrait  by  Van  Dyck. 


THOMAS    WENTWORTH,  EARL    OF    STRAFFORD 


THE  LONG   PARLIAMENT  77 

indicated,  and  here  is  Cromwell's  exposition  of  it:  "Of 
the  two  greatest  concernments  that  God  hath  in  the 
world,  the  one  is  that  of  religion  and  of  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  professors  of  it;  to  give  them  all  due  and 
just  liberty ;  and  to  assert  the  truth  of  God.  The  other 
thing  cared  for  is  the  civic  liberty  and  interest  of  the 
nation.  Which,  though  it  is,  and  I  think  it  ought  to 
be,  subordinate  to  the  more  peculiar  interest  of  God, 
yet  it  is  the  next  best  God  hath  given  men  in  this 
world ;  and  if  well  cared  for,  it  is  better  than  any  rock 
to  fence  men  in  their  other  interests.  Besides,  if  any 
whosoever  think  the  interests  of  Christians  and  the  in- 
terest of  the  nation  inconsistent,  I  wish  my  soul  may 
never  enter  into  their  secrets." 

Firm  in  his  belief  in  direct  communion  with  God,  a 
sovereign  Power  unseen ;  hearkening  for  the  divine 
voice,  his  steps  guided  by  the  divine  hand,  yet  he 
moved  full  in  the  world  and  in  the  life  of  the  world. 
Of  books,  as  we  have  seen,  he  knew  little.  Of  the  yet 
more  invigorating  education  of  responsible  contact 
with  large  affairs,  he  had  as  yet  had  none.  Into  men 
and  the  ways  of  men,  he  had  enjoyed  no  opportunity 
of  seeing  far.  Destined  to  be  one  of  the  most  famous 
soldiers  of  his  time,  he  had  completed  two  thirds  of  his 
allotted  span,  and  yet  he  had  never  drilled  a  troop,  nor 
seen  a  movement  in  a  fight  or  the  leaguer  of  a  stronghold 
or  a  town.  He  was  both  cautious  and  daring;  both 
patient  and  swift;  both  tender  and  fierce;  both  sober 
and  yet  willing  to  face  tremendous  risks :  both  cool  in 
head  and  yet  with  a  flame  of  passion  in  his  heart.  His 
exterior  rough  and  unpolished,  and  with  an  odd  turn 
for  rustic  buffooneries,  he  had  the  quality  of  directing 
a  steady,  penetrating  gaze  into  the  center  of  a  thing. 
Nature  had  endowed  him  with  a  power  of  keeping  his 
own  counsel,  that  was  sometimes  to  pass  for  dissimu- 


78  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

lation;  a  keen  eye  for  adjusting  means  to  ends,  that 
was  often  taken  for  craft;  and  a  high-hearted  insis- 
tence on  determined  ends,  that  by  those  who  love  to 
think  the  worst  was  counted  as  guilty  ambition.  The 
foundation  of  the  whole  was  a  temperament  of  energy, 
vigor,  resolution.  Cromwell  was  one  of  the  men  who 
are  born  to  force  great  causes  to  the  proof. 


Before  this  famous  Parliament  had  been  many  days 
assembled,  occurred  one  of  the  most  dramatic  moments 
in  the  history  of  English  freedom.  Strafford  was  at 
the  head  of  the  army  at  York.  When  a  motion  for  a 
grand  committee  on  Irish  affairs  had  been  carried,  his 
friends  in  London  felt  that  it  was  he  who  was  struck 
at,  and  by  an  express  they  sent  him  peremptory  warn- 
ing. His  friends  at  York  urged  him  to  stay  where  he 
was.  The  king  and  queen,  however,  both  pressed  him 
to  come,  and  both  assured  him  that  if  he  came  he 
should  not  suffer  in  his  person,  his  honor,  or  his  for- 
tune. Strafford,  well  knowing  his  peril  but  un- 
daunted, quickly  posted  up  to  London,  resolved  to 
impeach  his  enemies  of  high  treason  for  inviting  the 
Scots  into  the  kingdom.  Historians  may  argue  for- 
ever about  the  legalities  of  what  had  happened,  but  the 
two  great  actors  were  under  no  illusions.  The  only 
question  was  who  should  draw  his  sword  first  and  get 
home  the  swiftest  thrust.  The  game  was  a  terrible 
one  with  fierce  stakes,  my  head  or  thy  head;  and  Pym 
and  Strafford  knew  it. 

The  king  received  his  minister  with  favor,  and  again 
swore  that  he  would  protect  him.  No  king's  word 
was  ever  worse  kept.     Strafford  next  morning  went 


THE  LONG   PARLIAMENT  79 

down  to  the  House  of  Lords,  and  was  received  with 
expressions  of  honor  and  observance.  Unhickily  for 
him,  he  was  not  ready  with  his  articles  of  charge,  and 
in  a  few  hours  it  was  too  late.  That  afternoon  the 
blow  was  struck.  Pym,  who  had  as  marked  a  genius 
for  quick  and  intrepid  action  as  any  man  that  ever  sat 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  rose  and  said  there  was 
matter  of  weight  to  be  imparted.  The  lobby  without 
was  quickly  cleared,  the  door  was  locked,  and  the  key 
laid  upon  the  table.  The  discussion  on  Strafford's 
misdeeds  in  Ireland,  and  in  his  government  as  presi- 
dent of  the  north,  went  on  until  between  four  and  ftve 
in  the  afternoon.  Then  Pym,  with  some  three  hun- 
dred members  behind  him,  passed  through  a  throng 
who  had  been  gathered  by  the  tidings  that  new  things 
were  on  foot,  and  on  reaching  the  bar  of  the  House  of 
Lords  he  told  them  that  by  virtue  of  a  command  from 
the  Commons  in  Parliament,  and  in  the  name  of  all 
the  Commons  of  England,  he  accused  Thomas,  Earl  of 
Strafford,  of  high  treason,  and  desired  his  committal 
to  prison  for  a  very  few  days  until  they  produced  the 
articles  and  grounds  of  their  accusation.  Strafford 
was  in  the  palace  at  Whitehall  during  these  proceed- 
ings. The  news  fell  like  a  thunderbolt  upon  his 
friends  around  him,  but  he  kept  a  composed  and  con- 
fident demeanor.  'T  will  go,"  he  said,  "and  look  mine 
accusers  in  the  face."  "With  speed  he  comes  to  the 
House;  he  calls  rudely  at  the  door;  the  keeper  of  the 
black  rod  opens ;  his  lordship,  with  a  proud,  glooming 
countenance,  makes  toward  his  place  at  the  board- 
head  ;  but  at  once  many  bid  him  rid  the  House." 
When  the  Lords  had  settled  their  course,  he  was  re- 
called, commanded  to  kneel  at  the  bar,  and  informed  of 
the  nature  of  his  delinquency.  He  went  away  in 
custody.     "Thus  he,  whose  greatness  in  the  morning 


8o  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

owned  a  power  over  two  kingdoms,  in  the  evening 
straightened  his  person  betwixt  two  walls."  From 
the  Tower,  whither  he  was  speedily  conveyed,  he 
wrote  to  his  wife: 

Albeit  all  be  done  against  me  that  art  and  malice  can  devise, 
with  all  the  rigour  possible,  yet  I  am  in  great  inward  quietness, 
and  a  strong  belief  God  will  deliver  me  out  of  all  these  troubles. 
The  more  I  look  into  my  case,  the  more  hope  I  have,  and  sure 
if  there  be  any  honour  and  justice  left,  my  life  will  not  be  in 
danger ;  and  for  anything  else,  time,  I  trust,  will  salve  any  other 
hurt  which  can  be  done  me.  Therefore  hold  up  your  heart, 
look  to  the  children  and  your  house,  let  me  have  your  prayers, 
and  at  last,  by  God's  good  pleasure  we  shall  have  our  de- 
liverance. 

The  business  lasted  for  some  five  months.  The  actual 
trial  began  on  March  22  (1641),  and  went  on  for 
fourteen  days.  The  memorable  scene  was  the  asser- 
tion on  the  grandest  scale  of  the  deep-reaching  prin- 
ciple of  the  responsibility  of  ministers,  and  it  was  the 
opening  of  the  last  and  greatest  of  the  civil  wars  with- 
in the  kingdom.  A  shrewd  eye-witness  has  told  us 
how  people  began  to  assemble  at  five  in  the  morning, 
and  filled  the  hall  by  seven;  how  the  august  culprit 
came  at  eight,  sometimes  excusing  delay  by  contrari- 
ety of  wind  and  tide,  in  a  barge  from  the  Tower  with  a 
guard  of  musketeers  and  halberdiers,  and  he  usually 
found  the  king  half  an  hour  before  him  in  an  un- 
ofificial  box  by  the  side  of  the  queen.  "It  was  daily," 
says  Baillie  the  Covenanter,  "the  most  glorious  as- 
sembly the  isle  can  afford ;  yet  the  gravity  not  such  as 
I  expected ;  oft  great  clamour  without  about  the  doors ; 
in  the  intervals  while  Strafford  was  making  ready  for 
answers,  the  Lords  got  always  to  iheir  feet,  walked 


EXPLANATION  OF  THE  LETTERS  ON  THE  PRINT  SHOWING  "  THE  TRVE 
MANER  OF  THE  SITTING  OF  THE  LORDS  &  COMMONS  OF  BOTH 
HOWSES  OF  PARLIAMENT  VPON  THE  TRYAL  OF  THOMAS  EARLE  OF 
STRAFFORD,  LORD   LIEVTENANT   OF   IRELAND." 

A,  the  King's  mai*'"^;  B,  his  feate  offtate;  C,  the  Queenes  mai*'« ;  D, 
the  Prince  his  highnes;  E,  Thomas  Earle  of  Arundell,  Lord  high  Steward 
of  England ;  F,  the  Lord  Keeper  ;  G,  the  Lord  Marques  of  Winchefter ; 
H,  the  Lord  high  Chamberlaine  of  England;  I,  the  Lord  Chamberlaine  of 
his  Mai''«  houfhold ;  K,  the  Lord  cheefe  luftice  of  the  Kings  bench ;  L, 
2  Pryui  Councellors;  M,  the  M""-  of  the  rolls;  N,  the  ludges  and  Barons 
of  the  Exchequer ;  O,  the  M"-  of  the  Chancery  ;  P,  the  Earles  ;  Q,  the  Vice- 
counts  ;  R,  the  Barons ;  S,  the  Knights,  Ciltizens,  &  burgefes  of  the  howfe 
of  Commons  ;  T,  the  Clarkes;  V,  the  Earle  of  Strafford;  \V,  the  Lieutenant 
of  the  Tower;  X,  the  Plaintiues  ;  Y,  the  Deputis  councell  &  officers  ;  Z,  the 
Countes  of  Arundell;  +>  t^e  eldeft  Sonnes  of  fome  of  the  Nobility. 


THE   LONG   PARLIAMENT  8i 

and  clattered ;  the  lower  house  men  too  loud  clatter- 
ing; after  ten  hours,  much  public  eating,  not  only  of 
confections  but  of  flesh  and  bread,  bottles  of  beer  and 
wine  going  thick  from  mouth  to  mouth  without  cups, 
and  all  this  in  the  king's  eye." 

With  the  impeachment  of  Strafford  the  whole  posi- 
tion comes  directly  into  view.  He  divided  universal 
hatred  with  his  confederate  the  archbishop,  who  had 
been  impeached  a  few  days  after  himself.  He  was  the 
symbol  and  impersonation  of  all  that  the  realm  had  for 
many  long  years  suffered  under.  In  England  the 
name  of  Strafford  stood  for  lawless  exactions,  arbi- 
trary courts,  the  free  quartering  of  troops,  and  the 
standing  menace  of  a  papist  enemy  from  the  other  side 
of  St.  George's  Channel.  The  Scots  execrated  him  as 
the  instigator  of  energetic  war  against  their  country 
and  their  church.  Ireland  in  all  its  ranks  and  classes 
having  through  its  Parliament  applauded  him  as  a 
benefactor,  now  with  strange  versatility  cursed  him  as 
a  tyrant.  It  was  the  weight  of  all  these  converging 
animosities  that  destroyed  him.  "Three  whole  king- 
doms," says  a  historian  of  the  time,  "were  his  accusers, 
and  eagerly  sought  in  one  death  a  recompense  of  all 
their  sufferings." 

Viewed  as  a  strictly  judicial  proceeding,  the  trial  of 
Strafford  was  as  hollow  as  the  yet  more  memorable 
trial  in  the  same  historic  hall  eight  years  later.  The 
expedients  for  a  conviction  that  satisfied  our  Lords 
and  Commons  were  little  better  than  the  expedients  of 
the  Revolutionary  tribunal  in  Jacobin  Paris  at  the  close 
of  the  next  century.  The  charges  were  vague,  gen- 
eral, and  saturated  with  questionable  inference.  The 
evidence,  on  any  rational  interpretation  of  the  facts, 
was  defective  at  almost  every  point.     That  Strafford 

6 


82  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

had  been  guilty  of  treason  in  any  sense  in  which  a 
sound  tribunal  going  upon  strict  law  could  have  con- 
victed him,  nobody  now  maintains  or  perhaps  even 
then  maintained.  Oliver  St.  John,  in  arguing  the  at- 
tainder before  the  Lords,  put  the  real  point.  "Why 
should  he  have  law  himself  who  would  not  that  others 
should  have  any?  W^e  indeed  give  laws  to  hares  and 
deer,  because  they  are  beasts  of  chase;  but  we  give 
none  to  wolves  and  foxes,  but  knock  them  on  the  head 
wherever  they  are  found,  because  they  are  beasts  of 
prey."  This  was  the  whole  issue — not  law,  but  my 
head  or  thy  head.  In  revolutions  it  has  often  been 
that  there  is  nothing  else  for  it ;  and  there  was  nothing 
else  for  it  here.  But  the  revolutionary  axe  is  double- 
edged,  and  so  men  found  it  when  the  Restoration 
came. 

Meanwhile,  the  one  thing  for  Pym  was  to  make  sure. 
That  Strafford  designed  to  subvert  what,  in  the  opin- 
ion of  the  vast  majority  of  Englishmen,  were  the  fun- 
damental liberties  of  the  realm,  there  was  no  moral 
doubt  though  there  was  little  legal  proof.  That  he 
had  earned  the  title  of  a  public  enemy ;  that  his  con- 
tinued eligibility  for  a  place  in  the  counsels  of  the  king 
would  have  been  a  public  danger,  and  his  escape  from 
punishment  a  public  disaster;  and  that  if  he  had  not 
been  himself  struck  down,  he  would  have  been  the  first 
to  strike  clown  the  champions  of  free  government 
against  military  monarchy — these  are  the  propositions 
that  make  the  political  justification  of  the  step  taken  by 
the  Commons  when,  after  fourteen  sittings,  they  began 
to  fear  that  impeachment  might  fail  them.  They  re- 
sorted to  the  more  drastic  proceeding  of  a  bill  of  at- 
tainder. They  were  surrounded  by  imminent  danger. 
They  knew  of  plots  to  bring  the  royal  army  down  upon 
the  Parliament.     They  heard  whispers  of  the  intention 


THE  LONG   PARLIAMENT  83 

of  the  French  king  to  send  over  a  force  to  help  his 
sister,  and  of  money  coming  from  the  Prince  of 
Orange,  the  king's  new  son-in-law.  Tales  came  of 
designs  for  Strafford's  escape  from  the  Tower.  Above 
all  was  the  peril  that  the  king,  in  his  desperation  and 
in  spite  of  the  new  difficulties  in  which  such  a  step 
would  land  him,  might  suddenly  dissolve  them.  It 
was  this  pressure  that  carried  the  bill  of  attainder 
through  Parliament,  though  Pym  and  Hampden  at  first 
opposed  it,  and  though  Selden,  going  beyond  Hyde 
and  Falkland  who  abstained,  actually  voted  against  it. 
Men's  apprehensions  were  on  their  sharpest  edge. 
Then  it  was  that  the  Earl  of  Essex,  rejecting  Hyde's 
arguments  for  merely  banishing  Strafford,  gave  him 
the  pithy  reply,  "Stone-dead  hath  no  fellow." 

Only  one  man  could  defeat  the  bill,  and  this  was 
Strafford's  master.  The  king's  assent  was  as  neces- 
sary for  a  bill  of  attainder  as  for  any  other  bill,  and  if 
there  was  one  man  who  might  have  been  expected  to 
refuse  assent,  it  was  the  king.  The  bill  was  passed 
on  a  Saturday  (May  8).  Charles  took  a  day  to  con- 
sider. He  sent  for  various  advisers,  lay  and  episcopal. 
Archbishops  Usher  and  Juxton  told  him,  like  honest 
men,  that  if  his  conscience  did  not  consent,  he  ought 
not  to  act,  and  that  he  knew  Strafford  to  be  innocent. 
In  truth  Charles  a  few  days  before  had  appealed  to  the 
Lords  not  to  press  upon  his  conscience,  and  told  them 
that  on  his  conscience  he  could  not  condemn  his  minister 
of  treason.  Williams,  sharper  than  his  two  brother 
prelates,  invented  a  distinction  between  the  king's  pub- 
lic conscience  and  his  private  conscience,  not  unlike 
that  which  was  pressed  upon  George  III  on  the  famous 
occasion  in  1800.  He  urged  that  though  the  king's 
private  conscience  might  acquit  Strafford,  his  public 
conscience  ought  to  yield  to  the  opinion  of  the  judges. 


84  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

Strafford  had  written  to  him  a  week  before,  and  begged 
him  to  pass  the  bill.  "Sir,  my  consent  shall  more 
acquit  you  herein  to  God  than  all  the  world  can  do  be- 
sides. To  a  willing  man  there  is  no  injury  done;  and 
as  by  God's  grace  I  forgive  all  the  world  with  calmness 
and  meekness  of  infinite  contentment  to  my  dislodging 
soul,  so,  sir,  to  you  I  can  give  the  life  of  this  world 
with  all  the  cheerfulness  imaginable,  in  the  just  ac- 
knowledgment of  your  exceeding  favours."  Little 
worthy  was  Charles  of  so  magnanimous  a  servant. 
Attempts  have  been  made  at  palliation.  The  queen, 
it  is  said,  might  have  been  in  danger  from  the  anger 
of  the  multitude.  "Let  him,"  it  is  gravely  enjoined 
upon  us,  "who  has  seen  wife  and  child  and  all  that  he 
holds  dear  exposed  to  imminent  peril,  and  has  refused 
to  save  them  by  an  act  of  baseness,  cast  the  first  stone 
at  Charles."  The  equity  of  history  is  both  a  noble  and 
a  scientific  doctrine,  but  its  decrees  are  not  to  be  settled 
by  the  domestic  affections.  Time  has  stamped  the 
abandonment  of  Strafford  with  an  ignominy  that  can- 
not be  washed  out.  It  is  the  one  act  of  his  life  for 
which  Charles  himself  professed  remorse.  "Put  not 
your  trust  in  princes,"  exclaimed  Strafford  when  he 
learned  the  facts.  "I  dare  look  death  in  the  face,"  he 
said  stoically,  as  he  passed  out  of  the  Tower  gate  to 
the  block;  "I  thank  God  I  am  not  afraid  of  death,  but 
do  as  cheerfully  put  off  my  doublet  at  this  time  as  ever 
I  did  when  I  went  to  my  bed."  "His  mishaps,"  said 
his  confederate,  Laud,  "were  that  he  groaned  under 
the  public  envy  of  the  nobles,  and  served  a  mild  and 
gracious  prince  who  knew  not  how  to  be  nor  to  be 
made  great." 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE    EVE    OF    THE    WAR 


WHEN  Mary  Stuart  in  1567  rode  away  a  captive 
from  Carberry  Hill,  she  seized  the  hand  of  Lord 
Linsay,  her  foe,  and  holding  it  aloft  in  her  grasp,  she 
swore  by  it,  "I  will  have  your  head  for  this,  so  assure 
you."  This  was  in  Guise-Tudor  blood,  and  her  grand- 
son's passion  for  revenge  if  less  loud  was  not  less  deep. 
The  destruction  of  Strafford  and  the  humiliation  that 
his  own  share  in  that  bitter  deed  had  left  in  the  heart 
of  the  king,  darkened  whatever  prospect  there  might 
at  any  time  have  been  of  peace  between  Charles  and 
the  Parliamentary  leaders.  He  was  one  of  the  men 
vindictive  in  proportion  to  their  impotence,  who  are 
never  beaten  with  impunity.  His  thirst  for  retaliation 
was  unquenchable,  as  the  popular  leaders  were  well 
aware,  as  they  were  well  aware  too  of  the  rising 
sources  of  weakness  in  their  own  ranks.  Seeing  no 
means  of  escape,  the  king  assented  to  a  series  of  re- 
forming bills  that  swept  away  the  Star  Chamber,  the 
Court  of  High  Commission,  the  assumed  right  to  levy 
ship-money,  and  the  other  more  flagrant  civil  griev- 
ances of  the  reign.  The  verdicts  of  Hal  lam  have 
grown  pale  in  the  flash  and  glitter  of  later  historians, 
yet  there  is  much  to  be  said  for  his  judgment  that  all 

85 


86  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

the  useful  and  enduring  part  of  the  reforming  work 
of  the  Long  Parliament  was  mainly  completed  within 
the  first  nine  months  of  its  existence.  These  were  all 
measures  obviously  necessary  for  the  restoration  or 
renovation  of  the  constitution,  and  they  stood  the  test 
of  altered  times.      Most  of  the  rest  was  writ  in  water. 

Charles  went  further  and  into  a  new  region  in  agree- 
ing to  a  law  that  guaranteed  the  assembly  of  a  Parlia- 
ment at  least  once  in  three  years  whether  with  the 
king's  consent  or  without.  Further  still  he  went 
when  he  assented  to  an  act  for  prolonging  the  life  of 
the  sitting  Parliament  until  it  should  vote  for  its  own 
dissolution  (May  ii,  1641).  Here  it  was  that  reform 
passed  into  revolution.  To  deprive  the  monarch  of 
the  right  of  taking  the  sense  of  his  people  at  his  own 
time,  and  to  make  dissolution  depend  upon  an  act  of 
Parliament  passed  for  the  occasion,  was  to  go  on  to 
ground  that  had  never  been  trodden  before.  It  con- 
vinced tl>e  king  more  strongly  than  ever  that  to  save 
his  crown,  in  the  only  sense  in  which  he  thought  a 
crown  worth  wearing,  he  would  have  to  fight  for  it. 
Yet  it  was  he  who  had  forced  the  quarrel  to  this  pitch. 
Pym,  Cromwell,  and  the  rest  were  not  the  men  to  for- 
get his  lawless  persecution  of  Eliot;  nor  that  Charles 
had  extinguished  Parliaments  for  eleven  years ;  nor 
how,  even  after  his  return  to  the  constitution  only  the 
year  before,  he  had  petulantly  broken  the  Short  Par- 
liament after  a  session  of  no  more  than  three  weeks. 
It  would  have  been  judicial  blindness  to  mistake  what 
was  actually  passing  before  their  eyes.  They  knew  of 
plot  upon  plot.  In  April  Pym  had  come  upon  one 
design  among  the  courtiers  to  bring  up  the  northern 
army  to  overawe  the  Parliament.  Almost  before  this 
was  exposed,  a  second  conspiracy  of  court  and  officers 
was  known  to  be  on  foot.     It  was  the  Scots  who  now. 


THE  E\'E  OF  THE  WAR  87 

as  so  often,  held  the  key  of  the  position.  Charles's 
design  was  manifestly  to  win  such  popularity  and  in- 
fluence in  Scotland,  that  he  might  be  allowed  to  use 
the  army  of  that  kingdom  in  concert  with  his  own 
army  in  the  north  of  England  to  terrify  his  mutinous 
Parliament  and  destroy  its  leaders.  Such  a  policy  was 
futile  from  its  foundation;  as  if  the  Scots,  who  cared 
for  their  church  far  more  than  they  cared  for  his 
crown,  were  likely  to  lend  themselves  to  the  overthrow 
of  the  only  power  that  could  secure  what  they  cherished 
most,  against  an  unmasked  enmity  bent  on  its  destruc- 
tion. The  defeat  of  the  English  Parliament  must 
bring  with  it  the  discomfiture  of  Christ's  kirk  in  Scot- 
land. In  the  month  of  August  Charles  left  London  to 
visit  his  northern  kingdom.  The  vigilance  of  the 
Parliament  men  was  not  for  an  instant  deceived. 
They  promptly  guessed  that  the  purpose  of  his  jour- 
ney must  be  to  seek  support  for  reaction,  and  his  rejec- 
tion of  their  remonstrances  against  his  absence  deep- 
ened their  suspicion. 

They  had  indeed  more  reason  than  this  for  uneasi- 
ness. The  first  of  those  moments  of  fatigue  had  come 
that  attend  all  revolutions.  At  the  beginning  of 
civil  discord  boldness  carries  all  before  it ;  but  a  settled 
community,  especially  one  composed  of  Englishmen, 
soon  looks  for  repose.  Hopes  are  seen  to  be  tinged 
with  illusion,  the  pulse  slackens,  and  the  fever  cools. 
The  nation  was  after  all  still  Royalist,  and  had  not  the 
king  redressed  their  wrongs?  Why  not  rest?  This 
was  the  cjuestion  of  the  indolent,  the  over-cautious,  the 
short-sighted  and  the  fearful.  Worse  than  fatigue,  the 
spirit  of  party  now  raised  its  questionable  crest. 
Philosophers  have  never  explained  how  it  comes  that 
faction  is  one  of  the  inborn  propensities  of  man ;  nor 
why  it  should  always  be  that,  even  where  solid  reasons 


88  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

are  absent,  almost  any  distinctions,  however  slender, 
fleeting,  fanciful,  or  frivolous,  will  yet  serve  to  found  a 
party  difference  upon.  "Zeal  for  different  opinions 
as  to  religion  or  government,  whether  those  opinions 
be  practical  or  speculative ;  attachment  to  different 
leaders  ambitiously  contending  for  preeminence  and 
power ;  devotion  to  persons  whose  fortunes  have  kin- 
dled human  interests  and  passions — these  things  have 
at  all  times  so  inflamed  men  as  to  render  them  far  more 
disposed  to  vex  and  oppress  each  other  than  to  work 
together  for  the  common  good."  Such  is  the  language 
of  Madison  about  a  singular  law  of  human  things,  that 
has  made  the  spirit  of  sect  and  party  the  master-key 
of  so  many  in  the  long  catalogue  of  the  perversities  of 
history. 

It  was  on  the  church  and  its  reform  that  the  stren- 
uous phalanx  of  constitutional  freedom  began  to 
scatter.  The  Long  Parliament  had  barely  been  a 
month  in  session  before  the  religious  questions  that 
were  then  most  alive  of  all  in  the  most  vigorous  minds 
of  the  time,  and  were  destined  to  lead  by  so  many 
divisions  and  subdivisions  to  distraction  in  counsel 
and  chaos  in  act,  began  rapidly  to  work.  Cromwell 
did  not  hold  the  helmsman's  place  so  long  as  Pym  sur- 
vived. Clarendon  said  of  Oliver  that  his  parts  seemed 
to  be  raised  by  the  demands  of  great  station,  "as  if  he 
had  concealed  his  faculties  until  he  had  occasion  to 
use  them."  In  other  words,  Cromwell  fixed  his  eyes 
upon  the  need  of  the  hour,  used  all  his  energy  and  de- 
votion in  meeting  it,  and  let  that  suffice.  Nor  in  men 
of  action  is  there  any  better  mark  of  a  superior  mind. 
But  that  Cromwell  was  "much  hearkened  to  from  the 
first"  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  he  was  specially 
placed  upon  eighteen  of  the  committees  into  which  the 
House  divided  itself  for  the  consideration  of  the  mul- 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  WAR  89 

titude  of  grievances  that  clamored  for  attention  from 
all  the  shires  and  boroughs  in  the  land.  He  moved 
the  second  reading  of  the  bill  for  a  sitting  of  Parlia- 
ment every  year,  and  he  took  a  prominent  part  in  the 
committee  that  transformed  the  bill  into  a  further 
enactment  that  a  Parliament  should  meet  at  least  once 
in  three  years,  with  or  without  the  crown. 

Going  deeper,  he  was  one  of  the  secret  instigators  of 
the  first  Parliamentary  move  of  the  Root-and-Branch 
men  against  the  bishops,  and  that  move  was  the  first 
step  in  the  development  of  party  spirit  within  ranks 
that  had  hitherto  been  stanchly  of  one  mind.  Every- 
body was  in  favor  of  church  reform  but  nobody  at 
this  stage,  and  certainly  not  Cromwell,  had  any  clear 
ideas  either  of  the  principle  on  which  reform  should 
proceed,  or  of  the  system  that  ought  to  be  adopted. 
On  those  ecclesiastical  institutions  that  were  what 
mattered  most,  they  were  most  at  sea.  The  prevail- 
ing temper  was  at  first  moderate.  To  exclude  the 
higher  clergy  from  meddling  as  masters  in  secular 
affairs,  to  stir  up  the  slackness  of  the  lower  clergy,  to 
nullify  canons  imposed  without  assent  of  Parliament, to 
expunge  from  the  Prayer-book  things  calculated  to  give 
offense — such  were  the  early  demands.  A  bill  passed 
through  the  Commons  for  removing  the  bishops  from 
the  House  of  Lords.  The  Lords  threw  it  out  (June, 
1641),  and  as  usual  rejection  of  a  moderate  reform 
was  followed  by  a  louder  cry  for  wholesale  innovation. 
The  constitutionalists  fell  back,  and  men  advanced  to 
the  front  with  the  root  of  the  matter  in  them.  A  month 
after  the  Lords  refused  the  bishop's  bill,  the  Commons 
passed  the  Root-and-Branch  bill.  The  Root-and- 
Branch  men,  besides  denouncing  the  liturgy  as  fram.ed 
out  of  the  Romish  breviary  and  mass-book,  declared 
government  by  bishops  to  be  dangerous  both  to  church 


90  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

and  commonwealth,  to  be  the  main  cause  and  occa- 
sion of  many  foul  evils.  Only  one  thing  was  to  be 
done  with  a  government  so  evil :  with  all  its  depen- 
dencies, roots,  and  branches,  it  should  be  forthwith 
swept  away.  What  was  to  be  the  substitute  nobody 
knew,  and  when  it  came  to  that  sovereign  and  most 
wholesome  test  for  all  reformers — the  conversion  of 
an  opinion  into  the  clauses  of  a  bill — neither  Cromwell 
nor  Vane  nor  any  other  of  the  reformers  had  anything 
practicable  to  propose. 

Root-and-Branch  was  in  time  confronted  by  rival 
proposals  for  moderate  Episcopacy.  Neither  Root- 
and-Branch  nor  moderate  Episcopacy  reached  an  effec- 
tive stage  in  either  House,  but  the  action  taken  upon 
them  split  the  Parliament  in  two,  one  side  for  Epis- 
copacy, and  the  other  against  it.  Such  were  the  two 
policies  before  men  on  the  eve  of  the  civil  war.  Then, 
by  and  by,  this  division  gradually  adjusted  itself  with 
disastrous  aptness  to  the  other  and  parallel  conflict  be- 
tween crown  and  Parliament ;  the  partisans  of  bishops 
slowly  turned  into  partizans  of  the  king,  and  Episco- 
palians became  one  with  Royalists.  The  wiser  divines 
tried  to  reconcile  the  rival  systems.  Usher,  Arch- 
bishop of  Armagh,  suggested  that  the  bishop  should 
have  a  council  of  elders.  Bramhall,  his  successor  in 
the  metropolitan  see,  whom  Cromwell  called  the  Irish 
Laud,  admitted  the  validity  of  Presbyterian  orders, 
and  thought  the  German  superintendents  almost  as 
good  as  bishops.  Baxter,  though  he  afterward  de- 
clined a  miter,  yet  always  held  out  a  hand  to  prelacy. 
Leighton,  one  of  the  few  wholly  attractive  characters 
of  those  bitter-flavored  times,  was  closely  intimate  with 
French  Jansenists,  of  whom  Hume  truly  says  that  they 
were  but  half  Catholics;  and  Leighton  was  wont  to 
declare  that  he  would  rather  turn  one  single  man  to  be 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  WAR  91 

truly  of  a  serious  mind,  than  turn  a  whole  nation  to 
mere  outer  conformity,  and  he  saw  no  reason  why 
there  should  not  be  a  conjunction  between  bishops  and 
elders.  For  none  of  these  temperate  and  healing  ideals 
was  the  time  ripe.  Their  journey  was  swiftly  bring- 
ing men  into  a  torrid  zone.  The  Commons  resolved 
that  communion-tables  should  be  removed  from  the 
east  end  of  churches,  that  chancels  should  be  lev- 
eled, that  scandalous  pictures  of  any  of  the  persons  of 
the  Trinity  should  be  taken  away,  and  all  images  of  the 
Virgin  Mary  demolished.  The  consequence  was  a 
bleak  and  hideous  defacement  of  beautiful  or  comely 
things  in  most  of  the  cathedrals  and  great  churches  all 
over  England.  Altar-rails  and  screens  were  de- 
stroyed, painted  windows  were  broken,  figures  of  stone 
and  marble  ground  to  powder,  and  pictures  cut  into 
shreds.  These  vandalisms  shocked  both  reverential 
sentiment  and  the  police  feeling  for  good  order,  and 
they  widened  the  alienation  of  Parliamentary  parties. 
Before  the  end  of  the  autumn,  Hyde  and  Falkland  had 
become  king's  friends. 

Hyde,  more  familiarly  known  by  his  later  style  of 
Lord  Clarendon,  stands  among  the  leading  figures  of 
the  time,  had  a  strong  and  direct  judgment,  much  inde- 
pendence of  character,  and  ideas  of  policy  that  were 
coherent  and  his  own.  His  intellectual  horizons  were 
wide,  he  had  good  knowledge  of  the  motives  of  men, 
and  understood  the  handling  of  large  affairs.  Even 
where  he  does  not  carry  us  with  him,  there  is  nobody 
of  the  time  whose  opinion  is  much  better  worth  know- 
ing. We  may  even  give  him  the  equivocal  credit  that 
is  due  to  the  Clarendonian  type  of  conservative  in  all 
times  and  places,  that  if  only  things  could  have  been 
different,  he  would  not  have  been  in  the  wrong.  His 
ideal  in  church  and  state,  viewed  in  the  light  of  the 


92  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

event,  did  not  ultimately  miscarry.  The  settlement  of 
1688  would  have  suited  him  well  enough,  and  in  his 
best  days  he  had  much  of  the  temper  of  Somers.  But 
he  and  Falkland  had  either  too  little  nerve,  or  too  re- 
fining a  conscience,  or  too  unstable  a  grasp,  for  the 
navigation  of  the  racing  floods  around  them.  They 
were  doubtless  unwilling  converts  to  the  court  party, 
but  when  a  convert  has  taken  his  plunge  he  must  en- 
dure all  the  unsuspected  foolishness  and  all  the  un- 
teachable  zealotry  of  his  new  comrades — an  experience 
that  has  perhaps  in  all  ages  given  many  a  mournful 
hour  to  generous  natures. 

It  was  now  that  a  majority  with  a  policy  found  it- 
self confronted  with  an  opposition  fluctuating  in  num- 
bers, but  still  making  itself  felt,  in  the  fashion  that  has 
since  become  familiar  essence  of  Parliamentary  life  all 
the  world  over.  As  we  shall  see,  a  second  and  deeper 
line  of  party  demarcation  was  soon  to  follow.  Mean- 
while the  division  between  parties  in  the  Commons  was 
speedily  attended  by  disagreement  between  Commons 
and  Lords,  and  this  widened  as  the  rush  of  events  be- 
came more  pressing.  Among  the  Lords,  too,  Charles 
now  found  friends.  It  was  his  own  fault  if  he  did  not 
discover  in  the  differences  among  his  enemies  upon  the 
church,  a  chance  of  recovering  his  own  shattered  au- 
thority in  the  state.  To  profit  by  these  differences  was 
his  persistent  game  for  seven  years  to  come.  Seldom 
has  any  game  in  political  manceuver  been  more  unskil- 
fully played. 

The  Parliament  had  adjourned  early  in  September, 
the  king  still  absent  in  Scotland.  The  superintendence 
of  affairs  was  carried  on  by  a  committee,  a  sort  of  pro- 
visional government  of  which  Pym  was  the  main- 
spring. Hampden  had  gone  to  Edinburgh  as  a  Par- 
liamentary commissioner  to  watch  the  king.     The  two 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  WAR  93 

houses  reassembled  a  few  clays  before  the  end  of  Octo- 
ber amid  intense  disquiet.  The  growing  tension  made 
the  popular  leaders  at  once  more  energetic  and  more 
deliberate.  Shortly  before  the  adjournment  the 
Prayer-book  had  been  attacked,  and  Cromwell  sup- 
ported the  attack.  Bishops  still  furnished  the  occa- 
sion, if  they  were  not  the  cause,  of  political  action. 
Root-and-Branch  was  dropped,  and  a  bill  was  renewed 
for  excluding  the  clergy  from  temporal  authority  and 
depriving  the  bishops  of  their  seats  among  the  Lords. 
Then  followed  a  bill  for  suspending  the  bishops  from 
Parliamentary  powers  in  the  meantime.  Cromwell  by 
the  side  of  Pym  spoke  keenly  for  it,  on  the  ground  that 
the  bishops  by  their  six-and-twenty  votes  should  not 
be  suffered  to  obstruct  the  legislative  purposes  of  a 
majority  of  the  two  houses. 

Charles,  writing  from  Scotland  (October),  had  an- 
nounced a  momentous  resolution.  'T  command  you." 
he  said  to  his  Secretary  of  State,  "to  assure  all  my 
servants  that  I  am  constant  to  the  discipline  and  doc- 
trine of  the  Church  of  England  established  by  Queen 
Elizabeth  and  my  father,  and  that  I  resolve  by  the 
grace  of  God  to  die  in  the  maintenance  of  it."  The 
pledge  was  more  tragic  than  perhaps  he  knew,  but 
when  the  time  came  he  redeemed  it  to  the  letter.  As 
a  sign  that  he  was  in  earnest,  he  proceeded  to  fill  up 
five  bishoprics  that  happened  to  be  vacant,  and  in  four 
of  them  he  planted  divines  who  had  in  convocation 
been  parties  to  the  unlawful  canons  on  which  the  Com- 
mons were  at  the  moment  founding  an  impeachment 
of  treason.  This  was  either  one  of  his  many  random 
imprudences,  or  else  a  calculated  challenge.  Cromwell 
blazed  out  instantly  against  a  step  that  proclaimed  the 
king's  intention  of  upholding  Episcopacy  just  as  it 
stood.     Suddenly  an  earthquake  shook  the  ground  on 


94  OLIVIER  CROMWELL 

which  they  stood,  and  threw  the  combatants  into  un- 
expected postures. 


II 


The  event  that  now  happened  inflamed  the  pubHc 
mind  in  England  with  such  horror  as  had  in  Europe 
followed  the  Sicilian  Vespers,  or  the  massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew,  or  the  slaughter  of  the  Protestants  in 
the  passes  of  the  Valtelline  by  the  Spanish  faction  only 
twenty-one  years  before.  In  November  the  news 
reached  London  that  the  Irish  had  broken  out  in  bloody 
rebellion.  The  story  of  this  dreadful  rising  has  been 
the  subject  of  vehement  dispute  among  historians  ever 
since,  and  even  in  our  own  day  has  been  discussed  with 
unhistoric  heat.  Yet  the  broad  facts  are  sufficiently 
clear  to  any  one  capable  of  w^eighing  the  testimony  of 
the  time  without  prejudice  of  race  or  faith;  and  they 
stand  out  in  cardinal  importance  in  respect  both  to 
leading  episodes  in  the  career  of  Cromwell,  and  to  the 
general  politics  of  the  Revolution. 

The  causes  of  rebellion  in  Ireland  lay  deep.  Con- 
fiscations and  exterminations  had  followed  in  deadly 
succession,  and  ever  since  the  merciless  suppression  of 
the  rising  of  the  Ulster  chieftains  in  the  reign  of  Eliza- 
beth, the  elements  of  another  violent  outbreak  had  been 
sullenly  and  surely  gathering.  Enormous  confisca- 
tions had  been  followed  by  the  plantation  of  Scotch 
and  English  colonists,  and  the  clearance  of  the  old 
owners  and  their  people.  The  colonists  thought  no 
more  of  rights  and  customs  in  the  aboriginal  popula- 
tion than  if  they  had  been  the  Matabele  or  Zulu  of  a 
later  time.  Besides  the  great  sweeping  forfeitures, 
rapacious  adventurers  set  busily  to  work  with  eagle 
eyes  to  find  out  flaws  in  men's  title  to  individual  es- 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  WAR  95 

tates,  and  either  the  adventurer  himself  acquired  the  es- 
tates, or  forced  the  possessor  to  take  a  new  grant  at 
an  extortionate  rent.  People  were  turned  ofif  their 
land  without  compensation  and  without  means  of  sub- 
sistence. Active  men  left  with  nothing  to  do  and 
nothing  of  their  own  to  live  upon,  wandered  about  the 
country,  apt  upon  the  least  occasion  of  insurrection  or 
disturbance  to  be  heads  and  leaders  of  outlaws  and 
rebels.  Strafford  (1632-40),  in  spite  of  his  success 
upon  the  surface,  had  aggravated  the  evil  at  its 
source.  He  had  brought  the  finances  into  good  order, 
introduced  discipline  into  the  army,  driven  pirates  out 
of  the  Channel,  imported  flax-seed  from  Holland  and 
linen-weavers  from  France.  But  nobody  blessed  or 
thanked  him,  everybody  dreaded  the  weight  of  his 
hand,  and  in  such  circumstances  dread  is  but  another 
word  for  hate.  The  genius  of  fear  had  perfected  the 
work  of  fear ;  but  the  whole  structure  of  imperial 
power  rested  on  a  shaking  bog.  The  great  inqui- 
sition into  titles  had  alarmed  and  exasperated  the  old 
English.  The  northern  Presbyterians  resented  his 
proceedings  for  religious  uniformity.  The  Catholics 
were  at  heart  in  little  better  humor ;  for  though  Straf- 
ford was  too  deep  a  statesman  to  attack  them  in  full 
front,  he  undoubtedly  intended  in  the  fullness  of  time 
to  force  them  as  well  as  the  Presbyterians  into  the 
same  uniformity  as  his  master  had  designed  for  Scot- 
land. He  would,  however,  have  moved  slowly,  and 
in  the  meantime  he  both  practised  connivance  with  the 
Catholic  evasion  of  the  law,  and  encouraged  hopes  of 
complete  toleration.  So  did  the  king.  But  after 
Strafford  had  gone  to  his  doom  in  England,  Puritan 
influences  grew  more  powerful,  and  the  Catholics  per- 
ceived that  all  the  royal  promises  of  complete  toleration, 
like  those  for  setting  a  Hmit  to  the  time  for  inquisition 


96  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

into  titles  of  land,  were  so  many  lies.  No  Irish  con- 
spirator could  have  laid  the  train  for  rebellion  more 
effectively.  If  any  one  cares  to  find  some  more  rea- 
sonable explanation  of  Irish  turbulence  than  the  simple 
theory  that  this  unfortunate  people  in  the  modern 
phrase  have  a  double  dose  of  original  sin,  he  should 
read  the  story  how  the  O' Byrnes  were  by  chicane,  per- 
jury, imprisonment,  martial  law,  application  of  burn- 
ing gridirons,  branding-irons,  and  strappado,  cheated 
out  of  their  lands. 

While  these  grievances  were  rankling  all  over  Ire- 
land, and  the  undying  animosities  of  the  dispossessed 
chieftains  of  Ulster  were  ready  to  break  into  flame, 
priests  and  friars  from  Spain  had  swarmed  into  the 
land  and  kindled  fresh  excitement.  No  papist  con- 
spiracy was  needed  to  account  for  what  soon  happened. 
When  one  deep  spring  of  discontent  mounts  to  a  head 
and  overflows,  every  other  source  becomes  a  tributary. 
Maddened  as  they  were  by  wholesale  rapine,  driven 
forth  from  land  and  homes,  outraged  in  every  senti- 
ment belonging  to  their  old  rude  organization,  it  is  no 
wonder  if  the  native  Irish  and  their  leaders  of  ancient 
and  familiar  name  found  an  added  impulse  in  passion 
for  their  religious  faith. 

At  last  that  happened  which  the  wiser  heads  had 
long  foreseen.  After  many  weeks  of  strange  stillness, 
in  an  instant  the  storm  burst.  The  Irish  in  Ulster  sud- 
denly (October  23,  1641)  fell  upon  the  English  colo- 
nists, the  invaders  of  their  lands.  The  fury  soon 
spread,  and  the  country  was  enveloped  in  the  flames  of 
a  conflagration  fed  by  concentrated  sense  of  ancient 
wrong,  and  all  the  savage  passions  of  an  oppressed 
people  suddenly  broke  loose  upon  its  oppressors. 
Agrarian  wrong,  religious  wrong,  insolence  of  race, 
now  brought  forth  their  poisonous  fruit.     A  thousand 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  WAR  97 

murderous  atrocities  were  perpetrated  on  one  side,  and 
they  were  avenged  by  atrocities  as  hideous  on  the  other. 
Every  tale  of  horror  m  the  insurgents  can  be  matched 
by  horror  as  diaboHc  in  the  soldiery.  What  happened 
in  1 64 1  was  in  general  features  very  like  what  hap- 
pened in  1798,  for  the  same  things  come  to  pass  in 
every  conflict  where  ferocious  hatred  in  a  persecuted 
caste  meets  the  ferocious  pride  and  contempt  of  its  per- 
secutors. The  main  points  are  reasonably  plain. 
There  is  no  question  by  whom  the  sanguinary  work 
was  first  begun.  There  is  little  question  that  it  was 
not  part  of  a  premeditated  and  organized  design  of  in- 
discriminate massacre,  but  was  inevitably  attendant 
upon  a  violent  rising  against  foreign  despoilers.  There 
is  no  question  that  though  in  the  beginning  agrarian  or 
territorial,  the  rising  soon  drew  after  it  a  fierce  struggle 
between  the  two  rival  Christian  factions.  There  is 
little  question  that,  after  the  first  shock.  Parsons  and 
his  allies  in  authority  acted  on  the  cynical  anticipation 
that  the  worse  the  rebellion,  the  richer  would  be  the  for- 
feitures. There  is  no  question  that  the  enormity  of 
crime  was  the  subject  of  exaggeration,  partly  natural 
and  inevitable,  partly  incendiary  and  deliberate.  Nor 
finally  is  there  any  question  that,  even  without  exag- 
geration, it  is  the  most  barbarous  and  inhuman  chapter 
that  stains  the  domestic  history  of  the  kingdom.  The 
total  number  of  Protestants  slain  in  cold  blood  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  rebellion  has  been  fixed  at  various 
figures  from  four  thousand  to  forty,  and  the  latest 
serious  estimate  puts  it  at  five-and-twenty  thousand 
during  the  first  three  or  four  years.  The  victims  of 
the  retaliatory  slaughter  by  Protestants  upon  Catholics 
were  countless,  but  Sir  William  Petty  thinks  that 
more  than  half  a  million  Irish  of  both  creeds  perished 
between  1641  and  1652. 


98  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

The  fated  international  antipathy  between  Enghsh 
and  Irish,  that  hke  a  volcano  is  sometimes  active, 
sometimes  smoldering  and  sullen,  now  broke  forth  in 
liquid  fire.  The  murderous  tidings  threw  England 
into  frenzy.  It  has  been  compared  to  the  fury  with 
which  the  American  colonists  regarded  the  use  of  red 
Indians  by  the  government  of  King  George;  or  to  the 
rage  and  horror  that  swept  over  the  country  for  a  mo- 
ment when  the  tidings  of  Cawnpore  arrived;  and  I 
need  not  describe  it.  The  air  was  thick,  as  is  the  way 
in  revolutions,  with  frantic  and  irrational  suspicion. 
The  catastrophe  in  Ireland  fitted  in  with  the  governing 
moods  of  the  hour,  and  we  know  only  too  well  how 
simple  and  summary  are  the  syllogisms  of  a  rooted  dis- 
trust. Ireland  was  papist,  and  this  was  a  papist  ris- 
ing. The  queen  was  a  papist,  surrounded  at  Somerset 
House  by  the  same  black  brood  as  those  priests  of  Baal 
who  on  the  other  side  of  St.  George's  Channel  were 
described  as  standing  by  while  their  barbarous  flock 
slew  old  men  and  women  wholesale  and  in  cold  blood, 
dashed  out  the  brains  of  infants  against  the  walls  in 
sight  of  their  wretched  parents,  ran  their  skeans  like 
red  Indians  into  the  flesh  of  little  children,  and  flung 
helpless  Protestants  by  scores  at  a  time  over  the  bridge 
at  Portadown.  Such  was  the  reasoning,  and  the 
damning  conclusion  was  clear.  This  was  the  queen's 
rebellion,  and  the  king  must  be  her  accomplice.  Sir 
Phelim  O'Neil,  the  first  leader  of  the  Ulster  rebellion, 
declared  that  he  held  a  commission  from  the  king  him- 
self, and  the  story  took  quick  root.  It  is  now  manifest 
that  Charles  was  at  least  as  much  dismayed  as  any  of 
his  subjects;  yet  for  the  rest  of  his  life  he  could  never 
wape  out  the  fatal  theory  of  his  guilt. 

That  Catholic  Ireland  should  prefer  the  king  to  the 
Parliament  for  a  master  was  to  be  expected.     Puritan- 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  WAR  99 

ism  with  the  Old  Testament  in  its  hand  was  never  an 
instrument  for  the  government  of  a  community  pre- 
dominantly Catholic,  and  it  never  can  be.  Nor  was  it 
ever  at  any  time  so  ill  fitted  for  such  a  task  as  now, 
when  it  was  passionately  struggling  for  its  own  life 
within  the  Protestant  island.  The  most  energetic 
patriots  at  Westminster  were  just  as  determined  to 
root  out  popery  in  Ireland,  as  Philip  H  had  been  to 
root  out  Lutheran  or  Calvinistic  heresy  in  the  United 
Provinces. 

The  Irish  rebellion  added  bitter  elements  to  the  great 
contention  in  England.  The  Parliament  dreaded  lest 
an  army  raised  for  the  subjugation  of  Ireland  should 
be  used  by  the  king  for  the  subjugation  of  England. 
The  king  justified  such  dread  by  trying  to  buy  military 
support  from  the  rebel  confederates  by  promises  that 
would  have  gone  near  to  turning  Ireland  into  a  sep- 
arate Catholic  state.  Meanwhile  we  have  to  think  of 
Ireland  as  weltering  in  bottomless  confusion.  Parlia- 
mentarian Protestants  were  in  the  field  and  Royalist 
Protestants,  Anglicans  and  Presbyterians;  the  Scots 
settlers  to-day  standing  for  the  Parliament,  to-morrow 
fighting  along  with  Ormonde  for  the  king ;  the  Confed- 
erate Catholics,  the  Catholic  gentry  of  the  Pale,  all  in- 
extricably entangled.  Thus  we  shall  see  going  on  for 
nine  desperate  years  the  sowing  of  the  horrid  harvest, 
which  it  fell  to  Cromwell  after  his  manner  to  gather  in. 


CHAPTER   VII 


THE    FIVE    MEMBERS THE    CALL    TO    ARMS 


THE  king  returned  from  Scotland  in  the  latter  part 
of  November  (1641),  baffled  in  his  hopes  of  aid 
from  the  Scots,  but  cheered  by  the  prospect  of  quarrels 
among  his  enemies  at  Westminster,  expecting  to  fish 
in  the  troubled  waters  in  Ireland,  and  bent  on  using 
new  strength  that  the  converts  of  reaction  were  bring- 
ing him  for  the  destruction  of  the  popular  leaders. 
The  city  gave  him  a  great  feast,  the  crowd  shouted 
long  life  to  King  Charles  and  Queen  Mary,  the  church 
bells  rang,  wine  was  set  flowing  in  the  conduits  in 
Cornhill  and  Cheapside,  and  he  went  to  Whitehall  in 
high  elation  at  what  he  took  for  counter-revolution. 
He  instantly  began  a  quarrel  by  withdrawing  the  guard 
that  had  been  appointed  for  the  Houses  under  the  com- 
mand of  Essex.  Long  ago  alive  to  their  danger,  the 
popular  leaders  had  framed  that  famous  exposition  of 
the  whole  dark  case  against  the  monarch  which  is 
known  to  history  as  the  Grand  Remonstrance.  They 
now  with  characteristic  energy  resumed  it.  The  Re- 
monstrance was  a  bold  manifesto  to  the  public,  setting 
out  in  manly  terms  the  story  of  the  Parliament,  its 
past  gains,  its  future  hopes,  the  standing  perils  with 
which  it  had  to  wrestle.     The  most  important  of  its 


THE   FIVE   MEMBERS  loi 

single  clauses  was  the  declaration  for  church  con- 
formity. It  was  a  direct  challenge  not  merely  to  the 
king,  but  to  the  new  party  of'  Episcopalian'. Royal- 
ists. These  were  not  slow  to'take  ap  the  challenge, 
and  the  fight  was  hard.  So;  deep  had  liie  di^isdoArnow 
become  within  the  walls  of  the  Commons.'  that  the 
Remonstrance  was  passed  only  after  violent  scenes  and 
by  a  narrow  majority  of  eleven  (November  22). 

Early  in  November  Cromwell  made  the  first  pro- 
posal for  placing  military  force  in  the  hands  of  Parlia- 
ment. All  was  seen  to  hang  on  the  power  of  the 
sword,  for  the  army  plots  brought  the  nearness  of  the 
peril  home  to  the  breasts  of  the  popular  leaders.  A 
month  later  the  proposal,  which  soon  became  the 
occasion  of  resort  to  arms  though  not  the  cause,  took 
defined  shape.  By  the  Militia  Bill  the  control  and 
organization  of  the  trained  bands  of  the  counties  was 
taken  out  of  the  king's  hands,  and  transferred  to  a 
lord  general  nominated  by  Parliament.  Next  the  two 
Houses  joined  in  a  declaration  that  no  religion  should 
be  tolerated  in  either  England  or  Ireland  except  the 
religion  established  by  law.  But  as  the  whirlpool  be- 
came more  angry,  bills  and  declarations  mattered  less 
and  less.  Each  side  knew  that  the  other  now  intended 
force.  Tumultuous  mobs  found  their  way  day  after 
day  to  hoot  the  bishops  at  Westminster.  Partizans 
of  the  king  began  to  flock  to  Whitehall,  they  were 
ordered  to  wear  their  swords,  and  an  armed  guard  was 
posted  ostentatiously  at  the  palace  gate.  Angry  frays 
followed  between  these  swordsmen  of  the  king  and  the 
mob  armed  with  clubs  and  staves,  crying  out  against 
the  bishops  and  the  popish  lords.  The  bishops  them- 
selves were  violently  hustled,  and  had  their  gowns 
torn  from  their  backs  as  they  went  into  the  House  of 
Lords.     Infuriated  by  these  outrages,  they  issued  a 


I02  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

foolish  notification  that  all  done  by  the  Lords  in  their 
absence  would  be  null  and  void.  This  incensed  both 
Lord?  andConimoas  sn-l  added  fuel  to  the  general  flame, 
and  the  unlucky  prelates  were  impeached  and  sent  to 
pfts6i^. '  Tbe  kingtriesl  to  change  the  governor  of  the 
Tower  and  to  install  a  reckless  swashbuckler  of  his 
own.  The  outcry  was  so  shrill  that  in  a  few  hours  the 
swashbuckler  was  withdrawn.  Then  by  mysterious 
changes  of  tact  he  turned  first  to  Pym,  next  to  the 
heads  of  the  moderate  Royalists,  Hyde,  Falkland,  and 
Culpeper,  The  short  history  of  the  overtures  to  Pym 
is  as  obscure  as  the  relations  between  Mirabeau  and 
Marie  Antoinette.  Things  had  in  truth  gone  too  far 
for  such  an  alliance  to  be  either  desirable  or  fruitful. 
Events  immediately  showed  that  with  Charles  honest 
cooperation  was  impossible.  No  sooner  had  he  estab- 
lished Falkland  and  Culpeper  in  his  council,  than 
suddenly,  without  disclosing  a  word  of  his  design,  he 
took  a  step  which  alienated  friends,  turned  back  the 
stream  that  was  running  in  his  favor,  handed  over  the 
strong  fortress  of  legality  to  his  enemies,  and  made 
war  inevitable. 

Pym  had  been  too  quick  for  Strafford  the  autumn 
before,  and  Charles  resolved  that  this  time  his  own 
blow  should  be  struck  first.  It  did  not  fall  upon  men 
caught  unawares.  For  many  weeks  suspicion  had 
been  deepening  that  some  act  of  violence  upon  the  pop- 
ular leaders  was  coming.  Suspicion  on  one  side  went 
with  suspicion  on  the  other.  Rumors  were  in  the  air 
that  Pym  and  his  friends  were  actually  revolving  in 
their  minds  the  impeachment  of  the  queen.  Whether 
the  king  was  misled  by  the  perversity  of  his  wife  and 
the  folly  of  the  courtiers,  or  by  his  own  too  ample 
share  of  these  unhappy  qualities,  he  perpetrated  the 
most  irretrievable  of  all  his  blunders.     A  day  or  two 


THE   FIVE   MEMBERS  103 

before,  he  had  promised  the  Commons  that  the  security 
of  every  one  of  them  from  violence  should  be  as  much 
his  care  as  the  preservation  of  his  own  children.  He 
had  also  assured  his  new  advisers  that  no  step  should 
be  taken  without  their  knowledge.  Yet  now  he  sud- 
denly sent  the  Attorney-General  to  the  House  of  Lords, 
there  at  the  table  (January  3,  1642)  to  impeach  one  of 
their  own  number  and  five  members  of  the  other 
House,  including  Pym  and  Hampden,  of  high  treason. 
Holies,  Haselrig,  and  Strode  were  the  other  three. 
No  stroke  of  state  in  history  was  ever  more  firmly  and 
manfully  countered.  News  came  that  officers  had 
invaded  the  chambers  of  the  five  members  and  were 
sealing  up  their  papers.  The  House  ordered  the  im- 
mediate arrest  of  the  officers.  A  messenger  arrived 
from  the  king  to  seize  the  five  gentlemen.  The  House 
sent  a  deputation  boldly  to  inform  the  king  that  they 
would  take  care  that  the  five  members  should  be  ready 
to  answer  any  legal  charge  against  them. 

Next  day  a  still  more  startling  thing  was  done. 
After  the  midday  adjournment,  the  benches  were  again 
crowded,  and  the  five  members  were  in  their  place. 
Suddenly  the  news  ran  like  lightning  among  them, 
that  the  king  was  on  his  way  from  Whitehall  with 
some  hundreds  of  armed  retainers.  The  five  members 
were  hurried  down  to  the  river,  and  they  had  hardly 
gained  a  boat  before  the  king  and  a  band  of  rufflers 
with  swords  and  pistols  entered  Westminster  Hall. 
Passing  through  them  and  accompanied  by  his  nephew, 
the  elector  Palatine,  the  king  crossed  the  inviolable 
threshold,  advanced  uncovered  up  the  floor  of  the 
House  of  Commons  to  the  step  of  the  chair,  and  de- 
manded the  five  accused  members.  He  asked  the 
Speaker  whether  they  were  there.  The  Speaker  re- 
plied in  words  that  will  never  be  forgotten,  that  he  had 


I04  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

neither  eyes  nor  ears  nor  tongue  in  that  place  but  as 
the  House  might  be  pleased  to  direct.  "  'T  is  no  mat- 
ter," the  king  said.  "I  think  my  eyes  are  as  good  as 
another's."  After  looking  round,  he  said  he  saw  that 
all  his  birds  were  flown,  but  he  would  take  his  own 
course  to  find  them.  Then  he  stammered  out  a  few 
apologetic  sentences,  and  stepping  down  from  the 
chair  marched  away  in  anger  and  shame  through  the 
grim  ranks  and  amid  deep  murmurs  of  privilege  out  at 
the  door.  His  band  of  baffled  cutthroats  followed 
him  through  the  hall  with  sullen  curses  at  the  loss  of 
their  sport.  When  next  he  entered  Westminster  Hall, 
he  was  a  prisoner  doomed  to  violent  death.  Cromwell 
was  doubtless  present,  little  foreseeing  his  own  part  in 
a  more  effectual  performance  of  a  too  similar  kind  in 
the  same  place  eleven  years  hence. 

Never  has  so  deep  and  universal  a  shock  thrilled 
England.  The  stanchest  friends  of  the  king  were  in 
despair.  The  Puritans  were  divided  between  dismay, 
rage,  consternation,  and  passionate  resolution.  One 
of  them,  writing  in  after  years  of  his  old  home  in  dis- 
tant Lancashire,  says :  "I  remember  upon  the  occasion 
of  King  Charles  I  demanding  the  five  members  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  Such  a  night  of  prayers,  tears, 
and  groans  I  was  never  present  at  in  all  my  life:  the 
case  was  extraordinary,  and  the  work  was  extraordi- 
nary." It  was  the  same  in  thousands  of  households  all 
over  the  land.  The  five  members  a  few  days  later 
returned  in  triumph  to  Westminster.  The  river  was 
alive  wath  boats  decked  with  gay  pennons,  and  the  air 
resounded  with  joyful  shouts  and  loud  volleys  from 
the  primitive  firearms  of  the  time.  Charles  was  not 
there  to  see  or  hear.  Exactly  a  week  after  the  Attor- 
ney-General had  brought  up  the  impeachment  of  the 


WILLIAM    LENTHALL,  SPEAKER    OF   THE    HOUSE    OF   COMJIONS. 
From  the  original  portrait  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


THE   FIVE   MEMBERS  105 

five  members,  he  quitted  Whitehall  (Jamiary  10),  and 
saw  it  no  more  until  all  had  come  to  an  end  seven  years 
later. 


This  daring  outrage  on  law,  faith,  and  honor  was 
a  provocation  to  civil  war  and  the  beginning  of  it. 
After  such  an  exploit  the  defenders  of  the  Parliament 
would  have  been  guilty  of  a  criminal  betrayal,  if  they 
had  faltered  in  facing  the  issue  so  decisively  raised. 
Pym  (January  14)  moved  that  the  House  should  go 
into  committee  on  the  state  of  the  kingdom,  and  Crom- 
well then  moved  the  consideration  of  means  to  put  the 
kingdom  into  a  posture  of  defense.  Hampden  by  and 
by  introduced  a  motion  to  desire  the  king  to  put  the 
Tower  of  London  and  other  parts  of  the  kingdom, 
with  the  militia,  into  such  hands  as  the  Parliament 
might  confide  in.  In  this  way  they  came  to  the  very 
essence  of  the  dispute  of  the  hour.  Was  the  king  to 
retain  the  sword?  For  some  weeks  debate  went  on. 
It  was  suggested  to  the  king  that  the  militia  might  be 
granted  for  a  time.  "By  God,  not  for  an  hour !"  cried 
Charles.  "You  have  asked  that  of  me  in  this  which 
was  never  asked  of  a  king,  and  with  which  I  will  not 
trust  my  wife  and  children." 

As  the  call  to  arms  was  every  day  more  plainly  felt 
to  be  inevitable,  it  is  no  wonder  that  many  men  on  the 
popular  side  recoiled.  The  prospect  was  dreadful, 
and  even  good  patriots  may  well  have  asked  them- 
selves in  anguish  whether  moderation,  temper,  good 
will,  compromise,  might  not  even  now  avert  it.  Pym 
showed  here,  as  always,  a  consummate  mastery  of  all 
the  better  arts  of  Parliamentary  leadership.     It  is  not 


io6  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

easy  to  tell  exactly  at  what  moment  he  first  felt  that 
peace  with  the  king  was  hopeless,  but  at  any  rate  he 
was  well  assured  that  it  was  so  now.  As  they  neared 
the  edge  of  the  cataract,  his  instincts  of  action  at  once 
braced  and  steadied  him.  He  was  bold,  prompt,  a 
man  of  initiative  resource  and  energy  without  fever, 
open  and  cogent  in  argument,  with  a  true  statesman's 
eye  to  the  demand  of  the  instant,  to  the  nearest  ante- 
cedent, to  the  next  step;  willing  to  be  moderate  when 
moderation  did  not  sacrifice  the  root  of  the  matter; 
vigorous  and  uncompromising  when  essentials  were 
in  jeopardy.  Cromwell  too  was  active  both  in  the 
House  and  the  country,  little  of  an  orator  but  a 
doer. 

Things  moved  fast.  In  April  the  king  with  an 
armed  force  demanded  admission  into  Hull,  where  he 
would  have  a  port  for  the  introduction  of  arms 
and  auxiliaries  from  abroad.  The  governor  shut 
the  gates  and  drew  up  the  bridge.  The  king  pro- 
claimed him  a  traitor.  This  proceeding  has  always 
been  accounted  the  actual  beginning  of  the  great  civil 
war.  On  August  22,  1642,  one  of  the  memorable 
dates  in  our  history,  on  the  evening  of  a  stormy  day 
Charles  raised  the  royal  standard  in  the  courtyard  at 
the  top  of  the  castle  hill  at  Nottingham.  This  was  the 
solemn  symbol  that  the  king  called  upon  his  vassals 
for  their  duty  and  service.  Drums  and  trumpets 
sounded,  and  the  courtiers  and  a  scanty  crowd  of  on- 
lookers threw  up  their  caps,  and  cried,  "God  save  King 
Charles  and  hang  up  the  Roundheads!"  But  a  gen- 
eral sadness,  says  Clarendon,  covered  the  whole  town. 
Melancholy  men  observed  many  ill  presages,  and  the 
king  himself  appeared  more  melancholy  than  his  wont. 
The  standard  itself  was  blown  down  by  an  unruly  wind 
within  a  week  after  it  had  been  set  up.     This  was  not 


THE   FIVE   MEMBERS  107 

the  first  time  that  omens  had  been  against  the  king. 
At  his  coronation  he  wore  white  instead  of  purple,  and 
"some  looked  on  it  as  an  ill  presage  that  the  king,  lay- 
ing aside  his  purple,  the  robe  of  majesty,  should  clothe 
himself  in  white,  the  robe  of  innocence,  as  if  thereby 
it  were  foresignified  that  he  should  divest  himself  of 
that  royal  majesty  which  would  keep  him  safe  from 
affront  and  scorn,  to  rely  wholly  on  the  innocence  of  a 
virtuous  life  which  did  expose  him  finally  to  calami- 
tous ruin."  Still  worse  was  the  court  preacher's  text 
on  the  same  august  occasion,  chosen  from  the  Book  of 
Revelation :  "Be  thou  faithful  unto  death,  and  I  will 
give  thee  a  crown  of  life,"  "more  like  his  funeral  ser- 
mon when  he  was  alive,  as  if  he  were  to  have  none 
when  he  was  to  be  buried." 

A  day  or  two  after  raising  the  standard,  Charles 
appointed  to  be  general  of  the  horse  Prince  Rupert,  the 
third  son  of  his  sister  the  Queen  of  Bohemia,  now  in 
his  twenty-third  year.  The  boldness,  energy,  and 
military  capacity  of  the  young  adventurer  were  des- 
tined to  prove  one  of  the  most  formidable  of  all  the 
elements  in  the  struggle  of  the  next  three  years. 
Luckily  the  intrepid  soldier  had  none  of  Cromwell's 
sagacity,  caution,  and  patience,  or  else  that  "provi- 
dence which  men  call  the  fortune  of  war"  might  have 
turned  out  differently. 

The  Earl  of  Essex,  son  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  favor- 
ite, was  named  general  of  the  Parliamentary  forces, 
less  for  any  military  reputation  than  from  his  social 
influence.  "He  was  the  man,"  said  the  preacher  of  his 
funeral  sermon  (1646),  "to  break  the  ice  and  set  his 
first  footing  in  the  Red  Sea.  No  proclamation  of  trea- 
son could  cry  him  down,  nor  threatening  standard 
daunt  him  that  in  that  misty  morning,  when  men  knew 


io8  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

not  each  other,  whether  friend  or  foe,  by  his  arising 
dispelled  the  fog,  and  by  his  very  name  commanded 
thousands  into  your  service."  Opinion  in  most  of  the 
country  was  pretty  firm  on  one  side  or  the  other,  but 
it  was  slow  in  mounting  to  the  heat  of  war.  The 
affair  was  grave,  and  men  went  about  it  with  argument 
and  conscience.  In  every  manor-house  and  rectory 
and  college,  across  the  counters  of  shops  in  the  towns, 
on  the  ale-bench  in  the  villages  and  on  the  roads,  men 
plied  one  another  with  precedents  and  analogies,  with 
Bible  texts,  with  endless  points  of  justice  and  of  expe- 
diency, thus  illustrating  in  this  high  historic  instance 
all  the  strength  and  all  the  weakness  of  human  reason- 
ing, all  the  grandeur  and  all  the  levity  of  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  passion.  Many,  no  doubt,  shared  the 
mind  of  Hutchinson's  father,  who  was  stanch  to 
the  Parliamentary  cause  but  infinitely  desirous  that  the 
quarrel  should  come  to  a  compromise,  and  not  to  the 
catastrophe  of  w-ar.  Savile  said:  '"I  love  religion  so 
well,  I  would  not  have  it  put  to  the  hazard  of  a  battle. 
I  love  liberty  so  much,  I  would  not  trust  it  in  the  hands 
of  a  conqueror;  for,  much  as  I  love  the  king,  I  should 
not  be  glad  that  he  should  beat  the  Parliament,  even 
though  they  were  in  the  wrong.  My  desires  are  to 
have  no  conquests  of  either  side."  Savile  was  no  edi- 
fying character ;  but  a  politician  who  would  fain  say 
both  yes  and  no  stands  in  a  crisis  for  a  numerous  host. 
On  the  other  hand,  human  nature  being  constant  in  its 
fundamental  colors,  we  may  be  sure  that  in  both  camps 
were  many  who  proclaimed  that  the  dispute  must  be 
fought  out,  and  the  sooner  the  fight  began,  the  sooner 
would  it  end. 

Enthusiasts  for  the  rights  and  religion  of  their  coun- 
try could  not  believe,  says  one  of  them,  that  a  work  so 
good  and  necessary  would  be  attended  with  so  much 


From  the  original  portrait  in  the  National  Porlrait  Gallery. 
RALPH,  LORD    HOPTOX,    OF    STRATTON,  K.B. 


THE   FIVE   MEMBERS  109 

difficulty,  and  they  went  into  it  in  the  faith  that  the 
true  cause  must  quickly  win.  On  the  other  side,  deep- 
rooted  interests  and  ancient  sentimerit  gathered  round 
the  crown  as  their  natural  center.  Selfish  men  who 
depended  upon  the  crown  for  honors  or  substance,  and 
unselfish  men  who  were  by  habit  and  connection  un- 
alterably attached  to  an  idealized  church,  united  accord- 
ing to  their  diverse  kinds  in  twofold  zeal  for  the  king 
and  the  bishops,  in  the  profound  assurance  that  Provi- 
dence would  speedily  lay  their  persecutors  low.  Fam- 
ilies were  divided,  close  kinsmen  became  violent  foes, 
and  brother  even  slew  brother.  Some  counties  were 
almost  wholly  for  the  king,  while  others  went  almost 
wholly  for  the  Parliament.  In  either  case,  the  rem- 
nant of  a  minority,  whether  the  godly  or  the  ungodly, 
found  it  best  to  seek  shelter  outside.  There  were 
counties  where  the  two  sides  paired  and  tried  to  play 
neutral.  The  line  of  social  cleavage  between  the  com- 
batants was  not  definite,  but  what  we  are  told  of  Notts 
was  probably  true  of  other  districts,  that  most  of  the 
nobles  and  upper  gentry  were  stout  for  the  king,  while 
most  of  the  middle  sort,  the  able  substantial  free- 
holders, and  commoners  not  dependent  on  the  malig- 
nants  above  them,  stood  for  the  Parliament. 

Speaking  broadly,  the  feeling  for  Parliament  was 
strongest  in  London  and  the  east ;  the  king  was  strong- 
est in  the  west  and  north.  Wherever  the  Celtic  ele- 
ment prevailed,  as  in  Wales  and  Cornwall,  the  king 
had  most  friends,  and  the  same  is  true  with  qualifica- 
tions in  the  two  other  kingdoms  of  Scotland  and  Ire- 
land. Where  the  population  was  thickest,  busiest  in 
trade  and  manufacture  and  wealthiest,  they  leaned 
with  various  degrees  of  ardor  toward  the  Parliament. 
Yorkshire  was  divided,  the  cloth  towns  south  of  the 
Aire  being  Parliamentary.     Lancashire,  too,  was  di- 


no  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

vided,  the  east  for  the  Parhament.  the  west  for  the 
king.  The  historians  draw  a  Inie  from  Flarnborough 
Head  to  Plymouth,  and  with  some  undulations  and 
indentations  such  a  line  separates  Royalist  from  Par- 
liamentary England.  In  East  Anglia  opinion  was 
steadfast  through  the  struggle^  but  elsewhere  it  fluc- 
tuated with  the  fortunes  of  the  war,  with  the  wavering 
inclinations  of  influential  gentry,  and  with  the  various 
political  issues  that  rose  in  bewildering  succession  after 
the  military  fight  was  over.  One  of  the  most  import- 
ant of  all  the  circumstances  of  the  hour  was  that  the 
fleet  (in  July,  1642)  declared  for  the  Parliament. 

The  temper  of  the  time  was  hard,  men  were  ready 
to  settle  truth  by  blows,  and  life  as  in  the  middle  ages 
was  still  held  cheap.  The  Cavalier  was  hot,  unruly, 
scornful,  with  all  the  feudal  readiness  for  bloodshed. 
The  Roundhead  was  keen,  stubborn,  dogged,  sustained 
by  the  thought  of  the  heroes  of  the  Old  Testament  who 
avenged  upon  Canaanite  and  Amalekite  the  cause  of 
Jehovah.  Men  lived  and  fought  in  the  spirit  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  not  of  the  New.  To  men  of 
the  mild  and  reflecting  temper  of  Chillingworth  the 
choice  was  no  more  cheerful  than  between  publicans 
and  sinners  on  one  side,  and  scribes  and  Pharisees  on 
the  other.  A  fine  instance  of  the  high  and  manly  tem- 
per in  which  the  best  men  entered  upon  the  struggle  is 
to  be  found  in  the  words  used  by  Sir  Wiliam  Waller 
to  the  brave  Hopton.  "God,  who  is  the  searcher  of 
my  heart,"  Waller  wrote,  "knows  with  what  a  sad 
sense  I  go  upon  this  service,  and  with  what  a  perfect 
hatred  I  detest  this  war  without  an  enemy;  but  I  look 
upon  it  as  sent  from  God,  and  that  is  enough  to  silence 
all  passion  in  me.  We  are  both  upon  the  stage,  and  must 
act  such  parts  as  are  assigned  us  in  this  tragedy.  Let 
us  do  it  in  a  way  of  honour  and  without  personal  ani- 
mosities." 


THE   FIVE   MEMBERS  m 

On  the  whole,  the  contest  in  England  was  stained  by- 
few  of  the  barbarities  that  usually  mark  a  civil  war, 
especially  war  with  a  religious  color  upon  it.  But 
cruelty,  brutality,  and  squalor  are  the  essence  of  all 
war,  and  here  too  there  was  much  rough  work  and  some 
atrocity.  Prisoners  were  sometimes  badly  used,  and 
the  Parliamentary  generals  sent  great  batches  of  them 
like  gangs  of  slaves  to  toil  under  the  burning  sun  in 
the  West  Indies,  or  to  compulsory  service  in  Venice 
or  an  American  colony.  Men  were  killed  in  cold 
blood  after  quarter  promised,  and  the  shooting  of 
Lucas  and  Lisle  after  the  surrender  of  Colchester  in 
1648  was  a  piece  of  savagery  for  which  Fairfax  and 
Ireton  must  divide  the  blame  between  them.  The 
ruffianism  of  war  could  not  be  avoided,  but  it  was  ruf- 
fianism without  the  diabolical  ferocity  of  Spaniards  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  or  Germans  in  the  seventeenth, 
or  French  sansculottes  in  the  eighteenth.  The  dis- 
cipline of  the  royal  forces  was  bad,  for  their  organiza- 
tion was  loose ;  and  even  if  it  had  been  better,  we  have 
little  difficulty  in  painting  for  ourselves  the  scenes  that 
must  have  attended  these  roving  bands  of  soldiery,  ill- 
paid,  ill-fed,  and  emancipated  from  all  those  restraints 
of  opinion  and  the  constable  which  have  so  much  more 
to  do  with  our  self-control  than  we  love  to  admit. 
Nor  are  we  to  suppose  that  all  the  ugly  stories  were  on 
one  side. 


BOOK  TWO 


IBoo^i^  tTwo 


CHAPTER   I 

CROMWELL    IN    THE    FIELD 

IT  is  not  within  my  scope  to  follow  in  detail  the  mili- 
tary operations  of  the  civil  war.  For  many 
months  they  were  little  more  than  a  series  of  confused 
marches,  random  skirmishes,  and  casual  leaguers  of 
indecisive  places.  Of  generalship,  of  strategic  sys- 
tem, of  ingenuity  in  scientific  tactics,  in  the  early  stages 
there  was  little  or  none.  Soldiers  appeared  on  both 
sides  who  had  served  abroad,  and  as  the  armed  strug- 
gle developed,  the  great  changes  in  tactics  made  by 
Gustavus  Adolphus  slowly  found  their  way  into  the 
operations  of  the  English  war.  He  suppressed  all 
caracoling  and  parade  manceuvers.  Cavalry  that  had 
formed  itself  in  as  many  as  five  or  even  eight  ranks 
deep,  was  henceforth  never  marshaled  deeper  than  three 
ranks,  while  in  the  intervening  spaces  were  platoons 
of  foot  and  light  field-pieces.  All  this,  the  soldiers 
tell  us,  gave  prodigious  mobility,  and  made  the  Swed- 
ish period  the  most  remarkable  in  the  Thirty  Years' 
War.  But  for  some  time  training  on  the  continent 
of  Europe  seems  to  have  been  of  little  use  in  the  con- 
flicts of  two  great  bands  of  military,  mainly  rustic, 
among  the  hills  and  downs,  the  lanes  and  hedges,  the 
rivers  and  strong  places,  of  England.  Modern  sol- 
diers have  noticed  as  one  of  the  most  curious  features 
of  the  civil  war  how  ignorant  each  side  usually  was  of 

115 


ii6  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

the  doings,  position,  and  designs  of  its  opponents. 
Essex  stumbled  upon  the  king,  Hop'ton  stumbled  upon 
Waller,  the  king  stumbled  upon  Sir  Thomas  Eairfax. 
The  two  sides  drew  up  in  front  of  one  another,  foot  in 
the  center,  horse  on  the  wings ;  and  then  they  fell  to 
and  hammered  one  another  as  hard  as  they  could,  and 
they  who  hammered  hardest  and  stood  to  it  longest 
won  the  day.  This  was  the  story  of  the  early  engage- 
ments. 

Armor  was  fallen  into  disuse,  partly  owing  to  the  in- 
troduction of  firearms,  partly  perhaps  for  the  reason 
that  pleased  King  James  I — because  besides  protect- 
ing the  wearer,  it  also  hindered  him  from  hurting  other 
people.  The  archer  had  only  just  disappeared,  and 
arrows  were  shot  by  the  English  so  late  as  at  the  Isle 
of  Re  in  1627.  Indeed  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war 
Essex  issued  a  precept  for  raising  a  company  of 
archers,  and  in  Montrose's  campaign  in  Scotland  bow- 
men are  often  mentioned.  It  is  curious  to  modern 
ears  to  learn  that  some  of  the  strongest  laws  enjoining 
practice  with  bow  and  arrow  should  have  been  passed 
after  the  invention  of  gunpowder,  and  for  long  there 
were  many  who  persisted  in  liking  the  bow  better  than 
the  musket,  for  the  whiz  of  the  arrow  over  their  heads 
kept  the  horses  in  terror,  and  a  few  horses  wounded 
by  arrows  sticking  in  them  were  made  unruly  enough 
to  disorder  a  whole  squadron.  A  flight  of  arrows, 
again,  apart  from  those  whom  they  killed  or  wounded, 
demoralized  the  rest  as  they  watched  them  hurtling 
through  the  air.  Extreme  conservatives  made  a  judi- 
cious mixture  between  the  old  time  and  the  new  by 
firing  arrows  out  of  muskets.  The  gunpowder  of 
those  days  was  so  weak  that  one  homely  piece  of  ad- 
vice to  the  pistoleer  was  that  he  should  not  discharge 
his  weapon  until  he  could  press  the  barrel  close  upon 


CROMWELL  IN  THE  FIELD  n; 

the  body  of  his  enemy,  under  the  cuirass  if  possible; 
then  he  would  be  sure  not  to  waste  his  charge.  The 
old-fashioned  musket- rest  disappeared  during  the  Pro- 
tectorate. The  shotmen,  the  musketeers  and  harque- 
busiers,  seem  usually  to  have  been  to  the  pikemen  in 
the  proportion  of  two  to  three.  It  was  to  the  pike  and 
the  sword  that  the  main  work  fell.  The  steel  head  of 
the  pike  was  well  fastened  upon  a  strong,  straight,  yet 
nimble  stock  of  ash,  the  whole  not  less  than  seventeen 
or  eighteen  feet  long.  It  was  not  until  the  end  of  the 
century  that,  alike  in  England  and  France,  the  pike 
was  laid  aside  and  the  bayonet  used  in  its  place.  The 
snaphance  or  flintlock  was  little  used,  at  least  in  the 
early  stages  of  the  war,  and  the  provision  of  the  slow 
match  was  one  of  the  difficulties  of  the  armament. 
Clarendon  mentions  that  in  one  of  the  leaguers  the  be- 
sieged were  driven  to  use  all  the  cord  of  all  the  beds  of 
the  town,  steep  it  in  saltpeter,  and  serve  it  to  the  sol- 
diers for  match.  Cartridges,  though  not  unknown, 
were  not  used  in  the  civil  war,  and  the  musketeer  went 
into  action  with  his  match  slowly  burning  and  a  couple 
of  bullets  in  his  mouth.  Artillery,  partly  from  the 
weakness  of  the  powder,  partly  from  the  primitive  con- 
struction of  the  mortars  and  cannon,  was  a  compara- 
tively ineffective  arm  upon  the  field,  though  it  was 
causing  a  gradual  change  in  fortifications  from  walls 
to  earthworks.  At  Naseby  the  king  had  only  two 
demi-culverins,  as  many  demi-cannon,  and  eight  sa- 
kers.  The  first  two  weighed  something  over  four 
thousand  pounds,  shot  twenty-four  pounds,  with  a 
charge  of  twelve  pounds  of  powder.  The  saker  was 
a  brass  gun  weighing  fifteen  hundred  pounds,  with  a 
shot  of  six  or  seven  pounds. 

It  was  not,  however,  upon  guns  any  more  than  upon 
muskets    that   the    English    commander    of   that    age 


ii8  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

relied  in  battle  for  bearing  the  brunt  whether  of  at- 
tack or  of  defense.  He  depended  upon  his  horsemen, 
either  cuirassier  or  the  newly  introduced  species, 
the  dragoons,  whom  it  puzzled  the  military  writers  of 
that  century  whether  to  describe  as  horse-footmen  or 
foot-horsemen.  Gustavus  Adolphus  had  discovered  or 
created  the  value  of  cavalry,  and  in  the  English  civil 
war  the  campaigns  were  few  in  which  the  shock  of 
horse  was  not  the  deciding  element.  Cromwell,  with 
his  quick  sagacity,  perceived  this  in  anticipation  of  the 
lessons  of  experience.  He  got  a  Dutch  officer  to  teach 
him  drill,  and  his  first  military  proceeding  was  to  raise 
a  troop  of  horse  in  his  own  countryside  and  diligently 
fit  them  for  action.  As  if  to  illustrate  the  eternal  les- 
son that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun,  some  have 
drawn  a  parallel  between  the  cavalry  of  the  small  re- 
publics of  Greece  in  the  fourth  century  before  Christ 
and  the  same  arm  at  Edgehill ;  and  they  find  the  same 
distinction  betw^een  the  Attic  cavalry  and  the  days  of 
Alexander,  as  may  be  traced  betw-een  the  primitive 
tactics  of  Oliver  or  Rupert  and  those  of  Frederick  the 
Great  or  Napoleon. 

We  are  then  to  imagine  Oliver  teaching  his  men 
straight  turns  to  left  and  right,  closing  and  opening 
their  files,  going  through  all  the  four-and-twenty  pos- 
tures for  charging,  ramming,  and  firing  their  pistols, 
petronels,  and  dragons,  and  learning  the  various  sounds 
and  commands  of  the  trumpet.  "Infinite  great,"  says 
an  enthusiastic  horseman  of  that  time,  "are  the  con- 
siderations which  dependeth  on  a  man  to  teach  and 
govern  a  troop  of  horse.  To  bring  ignorant  men  and 
more  ignorant  horse,  W'ild  man  and  mad  horse,  to 
those  rules  of  obedience  which  may  crown  every  mo- 
tion and  action  with  comely,  orderly,  and  profitable 
proceedings — hie  labor,  hoc  opus  est." 


CROMWELL  IN  THE  FIELD  119 

Cromwell's  troop  was  gradually  to  grow  into  a  regi- 
ment of  a  thousand  men,  and  in  every  other  direction 
he  was  conspicuous  for  briskness  and  activity.  He 
advanced  considerable  sums  from  his  modest  private 
means  for  the  public  service.  He  sent  down  arms  into 
Cambridgeshire  for  its  defense.  He  boldly  seized  the 
magazine  in  Cambridge  Castle  and  with  armed  hand 
stayed  the  university  from  sending  twenty  thousand 
pounds  worth  of  its  gold  and  silver  plate  for  the  royal 
use.  He  was  present  at  the  head  of  his  troop  in  the 
first  serious  trial  of  strength  between  the  Parliamen- 
tary forces  under  the  Earl  of  Essex  and  the  forces  of 
the  king.  The  battle  of  Edgehill  (October  23,  1642) 
is  one  of  the  most  confused  transactions  in  the  history 
of  the  war,  and  its  result  was  indecisive.^  The  Royal- 
ist were  fourteen  thousand  against  ten  thousand  for 
the  Parliament,  and  confiding  even  less  in  superior 
numbers  than  in  their  birth  and  quality,  they  had  little 
doubt  of  making  short  work  of  the  rebellious  and  cant- 
ing clowns  at  the  foot  of  the  hill.  There  was  no  great 
display  of  tactics  on  either  side.  Neither  side  appeared 
to  know  when  it  was  gaining  and  when  it  was  losing. 
Foes  were  mistaken  for  friends,  and  friends  were 
killed  for  foes.  In  some  parts  of  the  field  the  Parlia- 
ment men  ran  away,  while  in  other  parts  the  king's 
men  were  more  zealous  for  plundering  than  for  fight. 
When  night  fell,  the  conflict  by  tacit  agreement  came 
to  an  end,  the  Royalists  suspecting  that  they  had  lost 
the  day,  and  Essex  not  sure  that  he  had  won  it.  What 
is  certain  is  that  Essex's  regiment  of  horse  was  un- 
broken. "These  persons  underwritten,"  says  one  eye- 
witness, "never  stirred  from  their  troops,  but  they  and 

l-It  is  hardly  possible  to  take  more  to  extract  a  correct  and  coherent 
pains  than  Mr.  Sanfordtook("  Stud-  story  out  of  irreconcilable  author- 
ies  and  Illustrations,"  pp.  521-528)      ities. 


I20  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

their  troops  fought  till  the  last  minute,"  and  among  the 
names  of  the  valiant  and  tenacious  persons  so  under- 
written is  that  of  Cromwell. 

Whether  before  or  after  Edgehill,  it  was  about 
this  time  that  Cromwell  had  that  famous  conversation 
with  Hampden  which  stands  to  this  day  among  the 
noble  and  classic  commonplaces  of  English-speaking 
democracy  all  over  the  globe.  "I  was  a  person,"  he 
told  his  second  Parliament  the  year  before  he  died, 
"that  from  my  first  employment  was  suddenly  pre- 
ferred and  lifted  up  from  lesser  trusts  to  greater,  from 
my  first  being  a  captain  of  a  troop  of  horse,  and  I  did 
labor  as  well  as  I  could  to  discharge  my  trust,  and  God 
blessed  me  as  it  pleased  him.  And  I  did  truly  and 
plainly,  and  then  in  a  way  of  foolish  simplicity  as  it  was 
judged  by  very  great  and  wise  men  and  good  men  too, 
desire  to  make  my  instruments  help  me  in  that  work. 
I  had  a  very  worthy  friend  then,  and  he  was  a  very 
noble  person,  and  I  know  his  memory  is  very  grateful 
to  all — Mr.  John  Hampden.  At  my  first  going  out 
into  this  engagement.  I  saw  our  men  were  beaten  at 
every  hand,  and  desired  him  that  he  would  make  some 
additions  to  my  Lord  Essex's  army,  of  some  new  regi- 
ments. And  I  told  him  I  would  be  serviceable  to  him 
in  bringing  such  men  in  as  I  thought  had  a  spirit  that 
would  do  something  in  the  work.  'Your  troops,' 
said  L  'are  most  of  them  old  decayed  serving-men 
and  tapsters,  and  such  kind  of  fellows,  and,'  said  I, 
'their  troops  are  gentlemen's  sons  and  persons  of  qual- 
ity. Do  you  think  that  the  spirits  of  such  base  and 
mean  fellows  will  ever  be  able  to  encounter  gentlemen 
that  have  honor  and  courage  and  resolution  in  them? 
You  must  get  men  of  spirit,  and  of  a  spirit  that  is 
likely  to  go  on  as  far  as  gentlemen  will  go,  or  else  you 
will  be  beaten  still.'     He  was  a  wise  and  worthy  per- 


by  Cooper  at  Windsor  Castle,  by  special  permission  of 
Her  Majesty  the  Queen. 

ROBERT    DEVEREUX,    EARL   OF    ESSEX. 


CROMWELL  IN  THE  FIELD  xzi 

son,  and  he  did  think  that  I  talked  a  good  notion,  but 
an  impracticable  one.  Truly  I  told  him  I  could  do 
somewhat  in  it.  I  did  so  and  truly  I  must  needs  say 
that  to  you,  impute  it  to  what  you  please :  /  raised 
such  men  as  had  the  fear  of  God  before  them,  and  made 
some  conscience  of  what  they  did,  and  from  that  day 
forward,  I  must  say  to  you,  they  were  never  beaten, 
and  wherever  they  were  engaged  against  the  enemy 
they  beat  continually.  And  truly  this  is  matter  of 
praise  to  God,  and  it  hath  some  instruction  in  it,  to 
own  men  who  are  religious  and  godly.  And  so  many 
of  them  as  are  peaceably  and  honestly  and  quietly  dis- 
posed to  live  within  rules  of  government,  and  w^ill  be 
subject  to  those  gospel  rules  of  obeying  magistrates 
and  living  under  authority — I  reckon  no  godliness 
without  that  circle '" 

As  the  months  went  on,  events  enlarged  Cromwell's 
vision,  and  the  sharp  demands  of  practical  necessity 
drew  him  to  adopt  a  new  general  theory.  In  his  talk 
with  Hampden  he  does  not  actually  say  that  if  men 
are  quietly  disposed  to  live  within  the  rules  of  govern- 
ment that  should  suffice.  But  he  gradually  came  to 
this.  The  Earl  of  Manchester  had  raised  to  be  his 
major-general  Lawrence  Crawford,  afterward  to  be 
one  of  Cromwell's  bitter  gainsayers.  Crawford  had 
cashiered  or  suspended  one  of  his  captains  for  the  sore 
offense  of  holding  wrong  opinions  on  religion.  Crom- 
well's rebuke  (March,  1643)  i^  o^  ^^^  sharpest. 
"Surely  you  are  not  well  advised  thus  to  turn  off  one  so 
faithful  in  the  cause,  and  so  able  to  serve  you  as  this 
man  is.  Give  me  leave  to  tell  you,  I  cannot  be  of  your 
judgment;  cannot  understand  it,  if  a  man  notorious  for 
wickedness,  for  oaths,  for  drinking,  hath  as  great  a 
share  in  your  affection  as  one  who  fears  an  oath,  who 
fears  to  sin.     Aye,  but  the  man  is  an  Anabaptist.     Are 


122  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

you  sure  of  that?  Admit  that  he  be,  shall  that  render 
him  incapable  to  serve  the  public?  Sir,  the  State  in 
choosing  men  to  serve  it  takes  no  notice  of  their  opin- 
ions; if  they  he  willing  faithfully  to  serve  it,  that  satis- 
fies. I  advised  you  formerly  to  bear  with  men  of 
different  minds  from  yourself;  if  you  had  done  it  when 
I  advised  you  to  do  it,  I  think  you  would  not  have  had 
so  many  stumbling-blocks  in  your  way.  Take  heed  of 
being  sharp,  or  too  easily  sharpened  by  others,  against 
those  to  ivhom  you  can  object  little  but  that  they  square 
not  zvith  you  in  every  opinion  concerning  matters  of 
religion." 

In  laying  down  to  the  pragmatical  Crawford  what 
has  become  a  fundamental  of  free  governments,  Crom- 
well probably  did  not  foresee  the  schism  that  his 
maxims  would  presently  create  in  the  Revolutionary 
ranks.  To  save  the  cause  was  the  cry  of  all  of  them, 
but  the  cause  was  not  to  all  of  them  the  same.  What- 
ever inscription  was  to  be  emblazoned  on  the  Parlia- 
mentary banners,  success  in  the  field  was  the  one 
essential.  Pym  and  Hampden  had  perceived  it  from 
the  first  appeal  to  arms  and  for  long  before,  and  they 
had  bent  all  their  energies  to  urging  it  upon  the  House 
and  inspiring  their  commanders  with  their  own  con- 
viction. Cromwell  needed  no  pressure.  He  not  only 
saw  that  without  military  success  the  cause  was  lost, 
but  that  the  key  to  military  success  must  be  a  force  at 
once  earnest  and  well-disciplined;  and  he  applied  all 
the  keen  and  energetic  practical  qualities  of  his  genius 
to  the  creation  of  such  a  force  within  his  own  area.  He 
was  day  and  night  preparing  the  force  that  was  to  show 
its  quality  on  the  day  of  Marston  Moor.  "I  beseech  you 
be  careful  what  captains  of  horse  you  choose;  a  few 
honest  men  are  better  than  numbers.  If  you  choose 
godly,  honest  men  to  be  captains  of  horse,  honest  men 


CROMWELL  IN  THE  FIELD  123 

will  follow  them.  It  may  be  that  it  provokes  some 
spirits  to  see  such  plain  men  made  captains  of  horse. 
It  had  been  well  if  men  of  honor  and  birth  had  entered 
into  these  employments ;  but  why  do  they  not  appear  ? 
Who  would  have  hindered  them?  But  seeing  it  was 
necessary  the  work  should  go  on,  better  plain  men  than 
none;  but  best  to  have  men  patient  of  wants,  faithful 
and  conscientious  in  their  employments."  Then,  in 
famous  words  that  are  full  of  life,  because  they  point 
with  emphasis  and  color  to  a  social  truth  that  always 
needs  refreshing:  'T  had  rather  have  a  plain  russet- 
coated  captain  that  knows  what  he  fights  for,  and  loves 
what  he  knows,  than  that  which  you  call  a  gentleman 
and  is  nothing  else.  I  honor  a  gentleman  that  is  so 
indeed."  When  Manchester's  troops  joined  him, 
Cromwell  found  them  very  bad,  mutinous,  and  un- 
trustworthy, though  they  were  paid  almost  to  the  week, 
while  his  own  men  were  left  to  depend  on  what  the 
sequestrations  of  the  property  of  malignants  in  Hun- 
tingdonshire brought  in.  Yet,  paid  or  unpaid,  his 
troops  increased.  "A  lovely  company,"  he  calls  them ; 
*'they  are  no  Anabaptists,  they  are  honest,  sober  Chris- 
tians, they  expect  to  be  used  like  men." 

He  had  good  right  to  say  that  he  had  minded  the 
public  service  even  to  forgetfulness  of  his  own  and  his 
men's  necessities.  His  estate  was  small,  yet  already 
he  had  given  in  money  between  eleven  and  twelve  hun- 
dred pounds.  With  unwearied  zeal  he  organized  his 
county,  and  kept  delinquent  churchmen  in  order. 
"Lest  the  soldiers  should  in  any  tumultuous  way  at- 
tempt the  reformation  01  the  cathedral,  I  require  you," 
writes  Cromwell  to  a  certain  Mr.  Hitch  at  Ely,  "to  for- 
bear altogether  your  choir  service,  so  unedifying  and  of- 
fensive." Mr.  Hitch,  to  his  honor,  stuck  to  his  service. 
Thereupon  Cromwell  stamps  up  the  aisle  with  his  hat 


124  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

on,  calling  in  hoarse  barrack  tones  to  Mr.  Hitch, "Leave 
off  your  fooling,  and  come  down  sir."  Laud  would 
have  said  just  the  same  to  a  Puritan  prayer-meeting. 
Many  more  things  are  unedifying  and  offensive  than 
Cromwell  had  thought  of,  whether  in  Puritan  or 
Ansflican. 


The  time  came  when  the  weapon  so  carefully  forged 
and  tempered  was  to  be  tried.  The  Royalist  strong- 
hold on  the  Lincolnshire  border  was  Newark,  and  it 
stood  out  through  the  whole  course  of  the  war.  It  is 
in  one  of  the  incessant  skirmishes  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Newark  or  on  the  Newark  roads,  that  we  have  our 
first  vision  of  Cromwell  and  his  cavalry  in  actual  en- 
gagement. The  scene  was  a  couple  of  miles  from 
Grantham  (May  13,  1643). 

Ten  weeks  later  a  more  important  encounter  hap- 
pened at  Gainsborough  (July  28),  and  Cromwell  has 
described  it  with  a  terseness  and  force  that  is  in  strange 
contrast  to  the  turgid  and  uncouth  confusion  of  his 
speeches.  Within  a  mile  and  a  half  of  the  town  they 
meet  a  body  of  a  hundred  of  the  enemy's  horse.  Crom- 
well's dragoons  labored  to  beat  them  back,  but  before 
they  could  dismount  the  enemy  charged  and  repulsed 
them.  "Then  our  horse  charged  and  broke  them.  The 
enemy  being  at  the  top  of  a  very  steep  hill  over  our 
heads,  some  of  our  men  attempted  to  march  up  that 
hill ;  the  enemy  opposed ;  our  men  drove  them  up  and 
forced  their  passage."  By  the  time  they  came  up  they 
saw  the  enemy  well  set  in  two  bodies,  the  horse  facing 
Cromwell  in  front,  less  than  a  musket-shot  away,  and 
a  reserve  of  a  full  regiment  of  horse  behind.  "We  en- 
deavored to  put  our  men  into  as  good  order  as  we 


CROMWELL  IN  THE  FIELD  125 

could.  The  enemy  in  the  meanwhile  advanced  toward 
US,  to  take  us  at  disadvantage ;  but  in  such  order  as  we 
were,  we  charged  their  great  body,  I  having  the  right 
wing.  We  came  up  horse  to  horse,  where  we  disputed 
it  with  our  swords  and  pistols  a  pretty  time,  all  keep- 
ing close  order,  so  that  one  could  not  break  the  other. 
At  last,  they  a  little  shrinking,  our  men  perceiving  it 
pressed  in  upon  them,  and  immediately  routed  their 
whole  body."  The  reserve  meanwhile  stood  unbroken. 
Cromwell  rapidly  formed  up  three  of  his  own  troops 
whom  he  kept  back  from  the  chase,  along  with  four 
troops  of  the  Lincoln  men.  Cavendish,  the  Royalist 
general,  charged  and  routed  the  Lincolners.  "Imme- 
diately I  fell  on  his  rear  with  my  three  troops,  which 
did  so  astonish  him  that  he  gave  over  the  chase  and 
would  fain  have  delivered  himself  from  me.  But  I 
pressing  on  forced  them  down  a  hill,  having  good  exe- 
cution of  them;  and  below  the  hill,  drove  the  general 
with  some  of  his  soldiers  into  a  quagmire,  where  my 
captain  slew  him  with  a  thrust  under  his  short  ribs." 

Whether  this  thrust  under  the  short  ribs  was  well 
done  or  not  by  chivalrous  rules,  has  been  a  topic  of 
controversy.  But  the  battle  was  not  over.  After  an 
interval  the  Parliamentarians  unexpectedly  found 
themselves  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  a  body  of 
horse  and  foot,  which  was  in  fact  Lord  Newcastle's 
army.  Retreat  was  inevitable.  Lord  Willoughby 
ordered  Cromwell  to  bring  off  both  horse  and  foot. 
"I  went  to  bring  them  off;  but  before  I  returned, 
divers  foot  were  engaged,  the  enemy  advancing  with 
his  whole  body.  Our  foot  retreated  in  some  disorder. 
Our  horse  also  came  off  with  some  trouble,  being 
wearied  with  the  long  fight  and  their  horses  tired." 
"But  such  was  the  goodness  of  God,"  says  another  nar- 
rator in  completion,  "giving  courage  and  valor  to  our 


126  OLIVER  CROAIWELL 

men  and  officers,  that  \\hile  Major  Wlially  and  Cap- 
tain Ayscongh,  sometimes  the  one  with  four  troops 
faced  the  enemy,  sometimes  the  other,  to  the  exceeding 
glory  of  God  be  it  spoken,  and  the  great  honor  of  those 
two  gentlemen,  they  with  this  handful  forced  the 
enemy  so,  and  dared  them  to  their  teeth  in  at  the  least 
eight  or  nine  several  removes,  the  enemy  following  at 
their  heels ;  and  they,  though  their  horses  were  exceed- 
ingly tired,  retreating  in  order  near  carbine-shot  of  the 
enemy,  who  then  followed  them,  firing  upon  them; 
Colonel  Cromwell  gathering  up  the  main  body,  and 
facing  them  behind  these  two  lesser  bodies — that  in 
despite  of  the  enemy  we  brought  ofif  our  horse  in  this 
order  without  the  loss  of  two  men."  The  military 
critic  of  our  own  day  marks  great  improvement  be- 
tween Grantham  and  Gainsborough ;  he  notes  how  in 
the  second  of  the  two  days  there  is  no  delay  in  forming 
up;  how  the  development  is  rapidly  carried  out  over 
difficult  ground,  bespeaking  well-drilled  and  flexible 
troops;  how  the  charge  is  prompt  and  decisive,  wath  a 
reserve  kept  well  in  hand,  and  then  launched  trium- 
phantly at  the  right  moment;  how  skilfully  the  in- 
fantry in  an  unequal  fight  is  protected  in  the  eight  or 
nine  moves  of  its  retreat. 

At  Winceby  or  Horncastle  fight,  things  were  still 
better  (October  ii,  1643).  So  soon  as  the  men  had 
knowledge  of  the  enemy's  coming,  they  were  very  full 
of  joy  and  resolution,  thinking  it  a  great  mercy  that 
they  should  now  fight  with  him,  and  on  they  went  sing- 
ing their  psalms,  Cromwell  in  the  van.  The  Royalist 
dragoons  gave  him  a  first  volley,  as  he  fell  with  brave 
resolution  upon  them,  and  then  at  half-pistol  shot  a 
second,  and  his  horse  was  killed  under  him.  But  he 
took  a  soldier's  horse  and  promptly  mounting  again 
rejonied  the  charge,  which  "was  so  home-given,  and 


CROMWELL  IN  THE  FIELD  127 

performed  with  so  much  admirable  courage  and  reso- 
lution, that  the  enemy  stood  not  another,  but  were 
driven  back  on  their  own  body." 

It  was  clear  that  a  new  cavalry  leader  had  arisen  in 
England,  as  daring  as  the  dreaded  Rupert,  but  with  a 
coolness  in  the  red  blaze  of  battle,  a  piercing  eye  for 
the  shifts  and  changes  in  the  fortunes  of  the  day,  above 
all  with  a  power  of  wielding  his  phalanx  wuth  a  com- 
bined steadiness  and  mobility  such  as  the  fiery  prince 
never  had.  Whether  Rupert  or  Oliver  was  first  to 
change  cavalry  tactics  is,  among  experts,  matter  of  dis- 
pute. The  older  way  had  been  to  fire  a  volley  before 
the  charge.  The  front  rank  discharged  its  pistols, 
then  opened  right  and  left,  and  the  second  rank  took 
its  place,  and  so  down  to  the  fifth.  Then  came  the 
onset  with  swords  and  butt-ends  of  their  firearms. 
The  new  plan  was  to  substitute  the  tactics  of  the  shock ; 
for  the  horse  to  keep  close  together,  knee  to  knee,  to 
face  the  enemy  front  to  front,  and  either  to  receive  the 
hostile  charge  in  steady,  strong  cohesion,  or  else  in 
the  same  cohesion  to  bear  down  on  the  foe  sword  in 
hand,  and  not  to  fire  either  pistol  or  carbine  until  they 
had  broken  through. 

After  the  war  had  lasted  a  year  and  a  half,  things 
looked  critical  for  the  Parliament.  Lincoln  stood  firm, 
and  the  eastern  counties  stood  firm,  but  the  king  had 
the  best  of  it  both  in  popular  favor  and  military  posi- 
tion in  the  north  including  York,  and  the  west  includ- 
ing Exeter,  and  the  midlands  including  Bedford  and 
Northampton.  There  seemed  also  to  be  a  chance  of 
forces  being  released  in  Ireland,  and  of  relief  coming 
to  the  king  from  France.  The  genius  of  Pym,  who 
had  discerned  the  vital  importance  of  the  Scots  to  the 
English  struggle  at  its  beginning,  now  turned  to  the 
same  quarter  at  the  second  decisive  hour  of  peril.     He 


128  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

contrived  an  alliance  with  them,  raised  money  for  them, 
made  all  ready  for  their  immediate  advance  across  the 
border,  and  so  opened  what  w-as  for  more  reasons  than 
one  a  new-  and  critical  chapter  in  the  conflict. 

There  were  many  varying  combinations  between 
English  and  Scotch  parties  from  1639  down  to  Crom- 
well's crowning  victory  at  Worcester  in  165 1.  In 
none  of  them  did  the  alliance  rest  upon  broad  and  real 
community  of  aim.  sentiment,  or  policy,  and  the  result 
was  that  Scotch  and  English  allies  ^^ere  always  on  the 
verge  of  open  enmity.  The  tW'O  nations  were  not  one 
in  temperament,  nor  spiritual  experience,  nor  political 
requirements ;  and  even  at  the  few  moments  when  they 
approached  a  kind  of  cordiality,  their  relations  were 
uneasy.  In  Cromwell  this  uneasiness  was  from  the 
first  very  near  to  active  resentment.  Whether  Pym 
was  conscious  how  artificial  was  the  combination,  or 
foresaw  any  of  the  difiiculties  that  would  arise  from  di- 
vergent aims  in  the  parties  to  it,  w-e  cannot  tell.  The 
military  situation  in  any  case  left  him  no  choice,  and 
he  was  compelled  to  pay  the  price,  just  as  Charles  II 
w^as  when  he  made  his  bargain  with  the  Scots  seven 
years  later.  That  price  was  the  Solemn  League  and 
Covenant  (September,  1643).  This  famous  engage- 
ment was  forced  upon  the  English.  They  desired  a 
merely  civil  alliance.  The  Scots,  on  the  other  hand, 
convinced  from  their  own  experience  that  Presbytery 
w^as  the  only  sure  barrier  of  defense  against  the  return 
of  the  Pope  and  his  legions,  insisted  that  the  alliance 
should  be  a  religious  compact,  by  which  English. 
Scots,  and  Irish  were  to  bind  themselves  to  bring  the 
churches  in  the  three  kingdoms  to  uniformity  in  doc- 
trine, church  government,  and  form  of  worship,  so  that 
the  Lord  and  the  name  of  the  Lord  should  be  one 
throughout  the  realm.     For  three  years  from  Pym's 


After  the  portrait  by  Van  Dyck. 
WILLIAM    CAVENDISH,  DUKE    (PREVIOUSLY    EARL)    OF    NEWCASTLE. 


CROMWELL  IN  THE  FIELD  129 

bargain  the  Scots  remained  on  English  ground.  The 
Scots  fought  for  Protestant  uniformity,  and  the 
Enghsh  leaders  bowed  to  the  demand  with  doubtful  sin- 
cerity and  with  no  enthusiasm.  Puritanism  and  Pres- 
byterianism  were  not  the  same  thing,  and  even  Eng- 
lishmen who  doubted  of  Episcopacy  as  it  stood,  made 
no  secret  of  their  distaste  for  Presbytery  in  France. 
Geneva,,  the  Low  Countries,  or  in  Scotland.  Many 
troubles  followed,  but  statesmanship  deals  with  trou- 
bles as  they  arise,  and  Pym's  action  was  a  master- 
stroke. 


CHAPTER   II 


MARSTON    MOOR 


IN  1643  notable  actors  vanished  from  the  scene.  In 
the  closing  days  of  1642  Richelieu,  the  dictator  of 
Europe,  had  passed  away.  In  a  few  months  he  was 
followed  by  his  master,  Louis  XIII,  brother  of  the 
English  queen.  Louis  XIV,  then  a  child  five  years 
old,  began  his  famous  reign  of  seventy-two  many-col- 
ored years,  and  Mazarin  succeeded  to  the  ascendancy 
and  the  policy  of  which  Richelieu  had  given  him  the 
key.  So  on  our  own  more  dimly  lighted  stage  con- 
spicuous characters  had  gone. 

Lord  Brooke,  author  of  one  of  the  earliest  and 
strongest  attacks  upon  Episcopacy,  and  standing  almost 
as  high  as  any  in  the  confidence  of  the  party,  was  shot 
from  an  open  window  while  sitting  in  his  chamber,  by 
the  besieged  soldiers  in  Litchfield  Close.  On  the  other 
side  the  virtuous  Falkland,  harshly  awakened  from  fair 
dreams  of  truth  and  peace  by  the  rude  clamor  and  sav- 
age blows  of  exasperated  combatants,  sought  death  in 
the  front  rank  of  the  royal  forces  at  the  first  battle  of 
Newbury  (September).  His  name  remains  when  all 
arguments  about  him  have  been  rehearsed  and  are  at 
an  end — one  of  that  rare  band  of  the  sons  of  time, 
soldiers  in  lost  causes,  who  find  this  world  too  vexed 
and  rough  a  scene  for  them,  but  to  whom  history  will 
never  grudge  her  tenderest  memories. 
130 


MARSTON    MOOR  131 

Two  figures  more  important  than  either  of  these  had 
also  disappeared.  Hampden  had  been  mortally 
wounded  in  a  skirmish  at  Chalgrove  Field.  Then  in  De- 
cember the  long  strain  of  heavy  anxieties  burdening  so 
many  years  had  brought  to  an  end  the  priceless  life  of 
Pym,  the  greatest  leader  of  them  all.  With  these  two 
the  giants  of  the  first  generation  fell.  The  crisis  had 
undergone  once  more  a  change  of  phase.  The  clouds 
hung  heavier,  the  storm  was  darker,  the  ship  labored 
in  the  trough.  A  little  group  of  men  next  stood  in  the 
front  line,  honorable  in  character  and  patriotic  in  in- 
tention, but  mediocre  in  their  capacity  for  war,  and 
guided  rather  by  amiable  hopes  than  by  a  strong- 
handed  grasp  of  shifting  and  dangerous  positions. 
For  them  too  the  hour  had  struck.  Essex,  Manches- 
ter, Warwick,  were  slow  in  motion  without  being  firm 
in  conclusion;  just  and  candid,  but  with  no  faculty  of 
clenching;  unwilling  to  see  that  Thorough  must  be  met 
by  Thorough ;  and  of  that  Fabian  type  whom  the  quick 
call  for  action  instead  of  inspiring  irritates.  Benevo- 
lent history  may  mourn  that  men  so  good  were  no 
longer  able  to  serve  their  time.  Their  misfortune  was 
that  misgivings  about  future  solutions  dulled  their 
sense  of  instant  needs.  Cromwell  had  truer  impres- 
sions and  better  nerve.  The  one  essential  was  that 
Charles  should  not  come  out  master  in  the  military 
struggle.  Cromwell  saw  that  at  this  stage  nothing 
else  mattered ;  he  saw  that  the  Parliamentary  liberties 
of  the  country  could  have  no  safety,  until  the  king's 
weapon  had  been  finally  struck  from  his  hand.  At 
least  one  other  actor  in  that  scene  was  as  keenly  alive 
to  this  as  Cromwell,  and  that  was  Charles  himself. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  patriots  and  their 
comrades  had  now  at  their  back  a  nation  at  red  heat. 
The  flame  kindled  by  the  attempted  arrest  of  the  five 


132  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

members,  and  by  the  tyranny  of  the  Star  Chamber  or 
of  the  bishops,  had  a  little  sunk.  Divisions  had  arisen, 
and  that  fatal  and  familiar  stage  had  come  when  men 
on  the  same  side  hate  one  another  more  bitterly  than 
they  hate  the  common  foe.  New  circumstances 
evolved  new  motives.  Some  who  had  been  most  for- 
ward against  the  king  at  first  had  early  fainted  by  the 
way,  and  were  now  thinking  of  pardon  and  royal 
favor.  Others  were  men  of  a  neutral  spirit,  willing 
to  have  a  peace  on  any  terms.  Others  had  got  estates 
by  serving  the  Parliament  and  now  wished  to  secure 
them  by  serving  the  king ;  while  those  who  had  got  no 
estates  bore  a  grudge  against  the  party  that  had  over- 
looked them. 

Cromwell  in  his  place  warned  the  House  of  the  dis- 
couragement that  was  stealing  upon  the  public  mind. 
Unless,  he  said,  we  have  a  more  vigorous  prosecution 
of  the  war,  we  shall  make  the  kingdom  weary  of  us 
and  hate  the  name  of  a  Parliament.  Even  many  that 
had  at  the  beginning  been  their  friends,  were  now  say- 
ing that  Lords  and  Commoners  had  got  great  places 
and  commands  and  the  power  of  the  sword  into  their 
hands,  and  would  prolong  the  war  in  order  to  per- 
petuate their  own  grandeur,  just  as  soldiers  of  fortune 
across  the  seas  spun  out  campaigns  in  order  to  keep 
their  own  employments.  If  the  army  were  not  put 
upon  another  footing  and  the  war  more  vigorously  fol- 
lowed, the  people  could  bear  the  war  no  longer,  but 
would  insist  upon  peace,  even  rather  a  dishonorable 
peace  than  none. 

Almost  the  same  reproaches  were  brought  on  the 
other  side.  This  is  the  moment  when  CJarendon  says 
that  it  seemed  as  if  the  whole  stock  of  affection,  loyalty. 
and  courage  that  had  at  first  animated  the  friends  of 
the  king  were  now  quite  spent,  and  had  been  followed 


MARSTON    MOOR        '  I33 

up  by  negligence,  laziness,  inadvertency,  and  base  de- 
jection of  spirit.  Mere  folly  produced  as  much  mis- 
chief to  the  king's  cause  as  deliberate  villainy  could 
have  done.  Charles's  own  counsels  according  to 
Clarendon  were  as  irresolute  and  unsteady  as  his  ad- 
visers were  ill-humored  and  factious.  They  were  all 
blind  to  what  ought  to  have  been  evident,  and  full  of 
trepidation  about  things  that  were  never  likely  to 
happen.  One  day  they  wasted  time  in  deliberating 
without  coming  to  a  decision,  another  day  they  decided 
without  deliberating.  Worst  of  all,  decision  was  never 
followed  by  vigorous  execution. 

At  the  end  of  1642  the  king  accounted  his  business 
in  Yorkshire  as  good  as  done.  Here  the  great  man 
was  the  Earl  of  Newcastle.  He  was  an  accomplished 
man,  the  patron  of  good  poets  like  Dryden,  and  of  bad 
poets  like  Shadwell.  He  wrote  comedies  of  his  own, 
which  according  to  his  wife  were  inspired  by  the  pleas- 
ant and  laudable  object  of  laughing  at  the  follies  of 
mankind;  and  there  is  a  story,  probably  apocryphal, 
of  his  entertaining  at  dinner  in  Paris  no  less  immortal 
persons  than  Hobbes  and  Descartes.  A  sage  Italian, 
dead  a  hundred  years  before,  warned  statesmen  that 
there  is  no  worse  thing  in  all  the  world  than  levity. 
"Light  men  are  the  very  instruments  for  whatever  is 
bad,  dangerous,  and  hurtful ;  flee  from  them  like  fire." 
Of  this  evil  tribe  of  Guicciardini's  was  Lord  Newcastle; 
and  too  many  of  Charles's  friends,  and  in  a  certain 
sense  even  Charles  himself,  were  no  better.  All  this, 
however,  did  not  prevent  Newcastle,  by  his  vast  terri- 
torial influence,  popularity,  and  spirit,  from  raising  in 
the  great  county  of  York,  in  Northumberland,  Dur- 
ham, and  Westmoreland,  a  force  of  nearly  seven  thou- 
sand men.  He  had  seized  the  metropolitan  city  of 
northern  England,  and  he  had  occupied  the  city  on  the 


134  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

Tyne  from  which  he  took  his  title.  It  was  the  only 
great  port  all  the  way  from  Plymouth  to  Berwick  hy 
which  the  king  could  bring  arms  and  ammunition  from 
the  continent  into  England.  Lord  Newcastle  was  con- 
fronted in  Yorkshire  by  the  two  Fairfaxes,  with  many 
though  hardly  a  majority  of  the  gentry  of  the  county 
on  their  side,  and  it  was  in  these  operations  that  the 
younger  Fairfax,  the  future  Lord  General  of  the  Par- 
liament, first  showed  his  gallantry,  his  dash,  his  invin- 
cible persistency,  and  his  skill.  The  Royalist  com- 
mander won  a  stiff  fight  at  Tadcaster  before  the  end  of 
the  year ;  and  after  alternations  of  capture  and  re- 
capture at  Bradford,  Wakefield,  and  Leeds,  by  the  mid- 
dle of  the  summer  of  1643  h^  made  himself  master  of 
all  the  towns  in  the  interior  of  the  county.  The  Fair- 
faxes were  badly  beaten  (June  30)  at  Adwalton,  a 
ridge  above  Bradford,  and  were  driven  by  their  thinned 
numbers,  by  some  disaffection  among  the  officers,  and 
by  occasional  lack  of  bullet,  match,  and  powder,  to 
force  their  way  over  the  waste  and  hilly  moors  and  to 
throw  themselves  into  Hull,  the  only  important  place 
in  the  county  of  York  now  left  in  the  hands  of  the 
Parliament. 

All  through  the  summer  of  1643  ^'^^  tide  of  victory 
flowed  strong  for  the  king.  Newcastle's  successes  in 
Yorkshire  accompanied  the  successes  of  Hopton  in  the 
west.  Lord  Stamford,  w-ith  his  army  of  seven  thou- 
sand men,  had  been  beaten  out  of  the  field  at  Stratton 
(May,  1643),  leaving  the  king  master  over  all  the 
southwest,  with  the  important  exception  of  Plymouth. 
The  defeats  at  Lansdown  and  Roundway  Down  (July 
13)  had  broken  up  Waller's  army.  Bristol  had  fallen 
(July  26).  The  movements  of  Essex  against  Oxford, 
like  most  of  that  unlucky  general's  operations,  had 
ended  in  failure,  and  he  protested  to  the  Parliament 


I 


MARSTON   MOOR  135 

that  he  could  not  carry  on  without  reinforcements  in 
men  and  money.  It  seemed  as  if  nothing  could  pre- 
vent the  triumph  of  a  great  combined  operation  by 
which  the  king  should  lead  his  main  army  down  the 
valley  of  the  Thames,  while  Newcastle  should  bring 
his  northern  force  through  the  eastern  counties  and 
unite  with  the  king  in  overpowering  London.  But  the 
moment  was  lost,  and  the  tide  turned.  For  good  rea- 
sons or  bad,  the  king  stopped  to  lay  siege  to  Gloucester, 
and  so  gave  time  to  Essex  to  recover.  This  was  one 
of  the  critical  events  of  the  war,  as  it  was  Essex's  one 
marked  success.  Charles  was  compelled  to  raise  the 
siege,  and  his  further  advance  was  checked  by  his  re- 
pulse at  Newbury  (September  20).  The  other  branch 
of  the  combined  movem.ent  by  which  Newcastle  was  to 
march  south  was  hardly  so  much  as  seriously  at- 
tempted. 

Newcastle's  doings  in  Yorkshire  and  their  sequel 
prepared  the  way  for  that  important  encounter  a  year 
later  which  brought  Cromwell  into  the  front  rank  of 
military  captains.  For  most  of  that  year,  from  the 
summer  of  1643  to  the  summer  of  1644,  the  power  of 
the  northern  army  and  the  fate  of  London  and  the  Par- 
liamentary cause  turned  upon  Lincolnshire,  the  bor- 
derland between  Yorkshire  and  the  stubborn  counties 
to  the  southeast.  This  issue  was  settled  by  the  cav- 
alry action  at  Winceby  (October,  1643),  where  the 
united  forces  of  Fairfax  and  Manchester  met  a  body 
of  Royalist  contingents  from  Newcastle,  Gains- 
borough, and  Lincoln.  Cromwell,  supported  by  Fair- 
fax, led  the  van.  His  horse  was  killed  under  him,  and 
as  he  rose  to  his  feet  he  was  felled  by  a  blow  from  a 
Royalist  trooper.  Remounting  the  horse  of  a  passing 
soldier,  he  dashed  into  the  fight  with  his  usual  stout- 
ness and  intrepidity.     The  same  day  that  saw  the  Roy- 


136  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

alist  repulse  at  Winceby,  saw  Newcastle  raise  the  siege 
of  Hull.  Two  months  later  the  Scots  began  their 
march  northward,  and  in  January  (1644)  they  crossed 
the  border.  Cromwell  during  the  spring  was  occu- 
pied in  the  convoy  of  ammunition,  in  taking  fortified 
houses,  and  other  miscellaneous  military  duties.  He  was 
soon  called  to  a  decisive  occasion.  Newcastle,  after  a 
critical  repulse  at  Selby,  fell  back  upon  York,  where  he 
was  gradually  closed  in  by  Fairfax,  Manchester,  and 
the  Scots.  From  April  to  June  he  held  out,  until  the 
welcome  news  reached  him  that  Rupert  was  advancing 
to  his  relief.  Fearing  to  be  caught  between  two  fires, 
the  Parliamentary  generals  drew  off.  By  a  series  of 
skilful  movements,  Rupert  joined  Newcastle  within 
the  walls  of  York,  and  forced  him  to  assent  to  imme- 
diate engagement  with  the  retreating  Parliamentarians. 
It  has  been  said  that  the  two  armies  who  stood  face 
to  face  at  Marston  (July  2,  1644)  were  the  largest 
masses  of  men  that  had  met  as  foes  on  English  ground 
since  the  wars  of  the  Roses.  The  Royalist  force 
counted  seventeen  or  eighteen  thousand  men,  the  Par- 
liamentarians and  their  Scotch  allies  twenty-six  or 
twenty-seven  thousand.  The  whole  were  about  twice 
as  many  as  were  engaged  at  Edgehill.  In  our  gener- 
ation people  may  make  little  of  battles  where  armies  of 
only  a  few  thousand  men  were  engaged.  Yet  we  may 
as  well  remember  that  Napoleon  entered  Italy  in  1796 
with  only  thirty  thousand  men  under  arms.  At  Areola 
and  at  Rivoli  he  had  not  over  fifteen  thousand  in  the 
field,  and  even  at  Marengo  he  had  not  twice  as  many. 
In  the  great  campaign  of  1631-32  in  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  the  Imperialists  were  twenty-four  thousand  foot 
and  thirteen  thousand  horse,  while  the  Swedes  were 
twenty-eight  thousand  foot  and  nine  thousand  horse. 
As  the  forces  engaged  at  Marston  were  the  most  nu- 


I 


From  the  miniature  at  Windsor  Castle,  by  special  permission  of 
Her  Majesty  the  Queen. 

THOMAS,  LORD    FAIRFAX 


From  the  obverse  and  reverse  of  a  medal  in  the  British  Museum. 
FERDINAND,  LORD   FAIRFAX. 


MARSTON    MOOR  i37 

merous,  so  the  battle  was  the  bloodiest  in  the  civil  war. 
It  was  also  the  most  singular,  for  the  runaways  were 
as  many  on  one  side  as  the  other,  and  the  three  victori- 
ous generals  were  all  of  them  fugitives  from  the  field. 
The  general  course  of  what  happened  is  fairly  intelli- 
gible, though  in  details  all  is  open  to  a  raking  fire  of 
historic  doubts.^ 

The  two  armies  faced  one  another  as  usual  in  two 
parallel  lines,  the  foot  in  the  center  and  the  horse  on 
the  wings.  A  wide  ditch  with  a  hedge  on  its  southern 
side  divided  them.  The  Parliamentary  forces  were 
drawn  up  on  a  ridge  sloping  to  the  moor.  The  Scot- 
tish foot  under  Leven  and  Bail  lie  stationed  in  the 
center,  with  the  Yorkshire  army  under  the  two  Fair- 
faxes on  the  right,  and  Manchester's  army  of  the  East- 
ern Association  on  the  left.  The  younger  Fairfax,  on 
the  right  wing,  was  in  command  of  a  body  of  horse 
counted  by  some  at  four  thousand,  of  whom  nearly  one 
third  were  Scots.  On  the  left  wing  Cromwell  had 
between  two  thousand  and  twenty-five  hundred  of  the 
regular  cavalry  of  the  Eastern  Association,  supported 
by  a  reserve  of  about  eight  hundred  ill-horsed  Scots  in 
the  rear.  Of  this  force  of  cavalry,  on  which  as  it  hap- 
pened the  fortune  of  the  day  was  to  depend.  David 
Leslie  commanded  the  Scottish  contingent  under 
Cromwell.  The  whole  line  extended  about  a  mile  and 
a  half  from  right  to  left,  and  the  Royalist  line  was 
rather  longer.  On  the  king's  side,  Rupert  faced 
Oliver.  Newcastle  and  his  main  adviser  Eythin 
faced  Leven  and  Baillie,  and  Goring  faced  the  two 
Fairfaxes.     The  hostile  lines  were  so  near  to  one  an- 

1  Mr.  Firth  has  closely  described  Hoenig's  "  Oliver    Cromwell,"   li. 

the  evidence  and  authorities  in  the  Theil,  p.  136,  and  a  more  import- 

"Transactions  of  Royal  Historical  ant  excursus,  Bd.  ii.  pp.  441-453. 
Society,"   vol.    xii.      See    Colonel 


138  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

other  that,  as  Cromwell's  scout-master  says,  "their 
foot  was  close  to  our  noses." 

So  for  some  five  hours  (July  21 )  the  two  hosts  with 
colors  flying  and  match  burning,  looked  each  other  in 
the  face.  It  was  a  showery  summer  afternoon.  The 
Parliamentarians  in  the  standing  corn,  hungry  and 
wet,  beguiled  the  time  in  singing  hymns.  "You  can- 
not imagine,"  says  an  eye-witness,  "the  courage,  spirit, 
and  resolution  that  was  taken  up  on  both  sides ;  for  we 
looked,  and  no  doubt  they  also,  upon  this  fight  as  the 
losing  or  gaining  the  garland.  And  now,  sir,  consider 
the  height  of  difference  of  spirits :  in  their  army  the 
cream  of  all  the  Papists  in  England,  and  in  ours  a  col- 
lection out  of  all  the  corners  of  England  and  Scotland, 
of  such  as  had  the  greatest  antipathy  to  popery  and 
tyranny;  these  equally  thinking  the  extirpation  of  each 
other.  And  now  the  sword  must  determine  that  which 
a  hundred  years'  policy  and  dispute  could  not  do." 
Five  o'clock  came,  and  a  strange  stillness  fell  upon 
them  all.  Rupert  said  to  Newcastle  that  there  would 
be  no  fight  that  day,  and  Newcastle  rode  to  his  great 
coach  standing  not  far  off,  called  for  a  pipe  of  tobacco, 
and  composed  himself  for  the  evening.  He  was  soon 
disturbed.  At  seven  o'clock  the  flame  of  battle  leaped 
forth,  the  low  hum  of  the  two  armed  hosts  in  an  instant 
charged  into  fierce  uproar,  and  before  many  minutes 
the  moor  and  the  slope  of  the  hill  were  covered  with 
bloodshed  and  disorder.  Who  gave  the  sign  for  the 
general  engagement  we  do  not  know,  and  it  is  even 
likely  that  no  sign  as  the  result  of  deliberate  and  con- 
certed plan  was  ever  given  at  all. 

Horse  and  foot  moved  down  the  hill  "like  so  many 
thick  clouds."  Cromwell,  on  the  Parliamentary  left, 
charged  Rupert  with  the  greatest  resolution  that  ever 
was  seen.     It  was  the  first  time  that  these  two  great 


MARSTON    MOOR  139 

leaders  of  horse  had  ever  met  in  direct  shock,  and  it 
was  here  that  Rupert  gave  to  OHver  the  brave  nick- 
name of  Ironside.  As  it  happened,  this  was  also  one 
of  the  rare  occasions  when  Oliver's  cavalry  suffered  a 
check.  David  Leslie  with  his  Scotch  troopers  was 
luckily  at  hand,  and  charging  forward  together  they 
fell  upon  Rupert's  right  flank.  This  diversion  enabled 
Oliver,  who  had  been  wounded  in  the  neck,  to  order  his 
retreating  men  to  face  about.  Such  a  manoeuver,  say 
the  soldiers,  is  one  of  the  nicest  in  the  whole  range  of 
tactics,  and  bears  witness  to  the  discipline  and  flexi- 
bility of  Cromwell's  force,  like  a  delicate-mouthed 
charger  with  a  consummate  rider.  With  Leslie's  aid 
they  put  Rupert  and  his  cavalry  to  rout.  "Cromwell's 
own  division,"  says  the  scout-master,  "had  a  hard  pull 
of  it,  for  they  were  charged  by  Rupert's  bravest  men 
both  in  front  and  flank.  They  stood  at  the  sword's 
point  a  pretty  while,  hacking  one  another;  but  at  last 
he  broke  through  them,  scattering  them  like  a  little 
dust."  This  done,  the  foot  of  their  own  wing  charging 
by  their  side,  they  scattered  the  Royalists  as  fast  as  they 
charged  them,  slashing  them  down  as  they  went.  The 
horse  carried  the  whole  field  on  the  left  before  them, 
thinking  that  the  victory  was  theirs,  and  that  "nothing 
was  to  be  done  but  to  kill  and  take  prisoners."  It  was 
admitted  by  Cromwell's  partizan  that  Leslie's  chase  of 
the  broken  forces  of  Rupert,  making  a  rally  impossible, 
was  what  left  Cromwell  free  to  hold  his  men  compact 
and  ready  for  another  charge.  The  key  to  most  of 
his  victories  was  his  care  that  his  horse  when  they  had 
broken  the  enemy  should  not  scatter  in  pursuit.  The 
secret  a  masterful  coolness  and  the  flash  of  military 
perception  in  the  leader,  along  with  iron  discipline  in 
the  men. 

Unfortunately  all  had  gone  wrong  elsewhere.     On 


I40  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

the  Parliamentary  right  the  operation  as  conducted 
by  Cromwell  on  the  left  had  been  reversed.  Sir 
Thomas  Fairfax  charged  Goring,  as  Cromwell  and 
Leslie  charged  Rupert,  and  he  made  a  desperate  fight 
for  it.  He  cut  his  way  through,  chasing  a  body  of 
Goring's  force  before  him  on  the  road  south  to  York. 
When  he  turned  back  from  his  chase,  after  being 
unhorsed,  severely  wounded,  and  with  difficulty  res- 
cued from  the  enemy,  he  found  that  Goring  by  a 
charge  of  savage  vigor  had  completely  broken  the 
main  body  of  the  Parliamentary  horse  on  the  right, 
had  driven  them  in  upon  their  own  foot,  and  had  even 
thrown  the  main  body  of  the  Scotch  foot  into  dis- 
order. This  dangerous  moment  has  been  described 
by  a  Royalist  eye-witness.  The  runaways  on  both 
sides  were  so  many,  so  breathless,  so  speechless,  so 
full  of  fears,  that  he  would  hardly  have  known  them 
for  men.  Both  armies  were  mixed  up  together,  both 
horse  and  foot,  no  side  keeping  their  own  posts. 
Here  he  met  a  shoal  of  Scots,  loud  in  lamentation  as 
if  the  day  of  doom  had  overtaken  them.  Elsewhere 
he  saw  a  ragged  troop  reduced  to  four  and  a  cornet, 
then  an  officer  of  foot,  hatless,  breathless,  and  with 
only  so  much  tongue  as  to  ask  the  way  to  the  next 
garrison. 

In  the  center  meanwhile  the  Parliamentary  force 
was  completely  broken,  though  the  Scotch  infantry  on 
the  right  continued  stubbornly  to  hold  their  ground. 
This  was  the  crisis  of  the  fight,  and  the  Parliamentary 
battle  seemed  to  be  irretrievably  lost.  It  was  saved 
in  a  second  act  by  the  manful  stoutness  of  a  rem- 
nant of  the  Scots  in  the  center,  and  still  more  by  the 
genius  and  energy  of  Cromwell  and  the  endurance  of 
his  troopers.  Many  both  of  the  Scottish  and  Eng- 
lish foot  had  taken  to  flight.     Their  braver  comrades 


„.  Windsor  Castle,  by  special  permi 
Her  Majesty  the  Qi 

GEORGE,  LORD    GORING. 


MARSTON   MOOR  141 

whom  they  left  behind  held  firm  against  assault  after 
assault  from  Newcastle  and  the  Royalists.  Crom- 
well, having  disposed  of  Rupert  on  the  left,  now 
swept  round  in  the  Royalist  rear  to  the  point  on  their 
left  where  Goring  had  been  stationed  before  the  battle 
began.  "Here,"  says  the  scout-master,  "the  business 
of  the  day,  nay,  of  the  kingdom,  came  to  be  deter- 
mined." Goring's  men,  seeing  Cromwell's  manoeu- 
ver,  dropped  their  pursuit  and  plunder,  marched  down 
the  hill,  just  as  Fairfax  had  marched  down  it  an 
hour  before,  and  speedily  came  to  the  same  disaster. 

Cromwell  keeping  his  whole  force  in  hand,  and 
concentrating  it  upon  the  immediate  object  of  beating 
Goring,  no  sooner  succeeded  than  he  turned  to  the 
next  object,  and  exerted  his  full  strength  upon  that. 
This  next  object  was  now  the  relief  of  the  harassed 
foot  in  the  center.  Attacking  in  front  and  flank,  he 
threw  his  whole  force  upon  the  Royalist  infantry  of 
Newcastle,  still  hard  at  work  on  what  had  been  the 
center  of  the  line,  supported  by  a  remnant  of  Goring's 
horse.  This  was  the  grand  movement  which  mili- 
tary critics  think  worthy  of  comparison  with  that  de- 
cisive charge  of  Seidlitz  and  his  five  thousand  horse, 
which  gained  for  Frederick  the  Great  the  renowned 
victory  at  Zorndorf.  "Major-General  David  Leslie, 
seeing  us  thus  pluck  a  victory  out  of  the  enemy's 
hands,  could  not  too  much  commend  us,  and  professed 
Europe  had  no  better  soldiers !"  Before  ten  o'clock 
all  was  over,  and  the  Royalists  beaten  from  the  field 
were  in  full  retreat.  In  what  is  sometimes  too  lightly 
called  the  vulgar  courage  of  the  soldier,  neither  side 
was  wanting.  Cromwell's  was  the  only  manoeuver 
of  the  day  that  showed  the  talent  of  the  soldier's  eye 
or  the  power  of  swift  initiative. 

More  than  four  thousand  brave  men  lay  gory  and 


142  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

stark  upon  the  field  under  the  summer  moon.  Of  these 
more  than  three  thousand  a  few  hours  before  had 
gone  into  the  fight  shouting,  "For  God  and  the  king!" 
met  by  the  hoarse  counter-shout  from  the  Parhamen- 
tarians,  "God  with  us !" — so  confident  were  each  that 
divine  favor  was  on  their  side.  At  the  famed  battle 
of  Rocroi  the  year  before,  which  transferred  the  lau- 
rels of  military  superiority  from  Spain  to  France, 
eight  thousand  Spaniards  were  destroyed  and  two 
thousand  French,  out  of  a  total  force  on  both  sides 
of  some  forty-five  thousand. 

A  story  is  told  of  Marston,  for  which  there  is  as 
good  evidence  as  for  many  things  that  men  believe. 
A  Lancashire  squire  of  ancient  line  was  killed  fight- 
ing for  the  king.  His  wife  came  upon  the  field  the 
next  morning  to  search  for  him.  They  were  strip- 
ping and  burying  the  slain.  A  general  officer  asked 
her  what  she  was  about,  and  she  told  him  her  melan- 
choly tale.  He  listened  to  her  with  great  tenderness, 
and  earnestly  besought  her  to  leave  the  horrid  scene. 
She  complied,  and  calling  for  a  trooper,  he  set  her 
upon  the  horse.  On  her  way  she  inquired  the  name 
of  the  officer,  and  learned  that  he  was  Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral  Cromwell. 

Cromwell's  own  references  to  his  first  great  battle 
are  comprised  in  three  or  four  well-known  sentences : 
"It  had  all  the  evidences  of  an  absolute  victory,  ob- 
tained by  the  Lord's  blessing  on  the  godly  party  prin- 
cipally. We  never  charged  but  we  routed  the  enemy. 
The  left  wing,  which  I  commanded,  being  our  own 
horse,  saving  a  few  Scots  in  our  rear,  beat  all  the 
prince's  horse,  and  God  made  them  stubble  to  our 
swords.  W^e  charged  their  regiments  of  foot  with 
our  horse,  and  routed  all  we  charged.     I  believe  of 


MARSTON    MOOR  i43 

twenty  thousand  the  prince  hath  not  four  thousand 
left.     Give  glory,  all  the  glory  to  God." 

Without  dwelling  on  the  question  how  much  the 
stubborn  valor  of  the  Scots  under  Baillie  and  Lums- 
den  against  the  Royalist  assaults  on  the  center  had  to 
do  with  the  triumphant  result,  still  to  describe  a  force 
nearly  one  third  as  large  as  his  own  and  charging 
side  by  side  with  himself,  as  a  few  Scots  in  our  rear, 
must  be  set  down  as  strangely  loose.  For  if  one 
thing  is  more  clear  than  another  amid  the  obscurities 
of  Marston,  it  is  that  Leslie's  flank  attack  on  Rupert 
while  the  ironsides  were  falling  back,  was  the  key 
to  the  decisive  events  that  followed.  The  only  plea 
to  be  made  is  that  Oliver  was  not  writing  an  official 
despatch,  but  a  hurried  private  letter  announcing  to  a 
kinsman  the  calamitous  loss  of  a  gallant  son  upon  the 
battlefield,  in  which  fullness  of  detail  was  not  to  be 
looked  for.  When  all  justice  has  been  done  to  the 
valor  of  the  Scots,  glory  enough  was  left  for  Crom- 
well ;  and  so,  when  the  party  dispute  was  over,  the 
public  opinion  of  the  time  pronounced. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE    WESTMINSTER    ASSEMBLY    AND    THE 
CONFLICT    OF    IDEALS 


WITH  the  march  of  these  events  a  march  of  ideas 
proceeded,  of  no  less  interest  for  mankind. 
The  same  commotion  that  was  fast  breaking  up  the 
foundation  of  the  throne  had  already  shaken  down 
the  church.  To  glance  at  this  process  is  no  irrele- 
vant excursion,  but  takes  us  to  the  heart  of  the  con- 
tention, and  to  a  central  epoch  in  the  growth  of  the 
career  of  Cromwell.  The  only  great  Protestant  coun- 
cil ever  assembled  on  English  soil  has,  for  various  rea- 
sons, lain  mostly  in  the  dim  background  of  our  his- 
tory.^v  Yet  it  is  no  unimportant  chapter  in  the  eternal 
controversy  between  spiritual  power  and  temporal,  no 
transitory  bubble  in  the  troubled  surges  of  the  Refor- 
mation. Dead  are  most  of  its  topics,  or  else  in  the 
ceaseless  transmigration  of  men's  ideas  as  the  ages 
pass,  its  enigmas  are  now  propounded  in  many  altered 
shapes.  Still,  as  we  eye  these  phantoms  of  old  debate, 
and  note  the  faded,  crumbling  vesture  in  which  once 

1  Since  this  chapter  was  first  work  of  importance  in  its  elucidation 
printed  Dr.  William  Shaw  has  of  the  controversies  of  the  Westmin- 
published  his  "History  of  the  Eng-  ster  Assembly,  and  otherwise.  The 
lish  Church  during  the  Civil  Wars  Mmutes  of  the  Assembly  were  pub- 
and  under  the  Commonwealth,"  a  lished  in  1874. 
144 


THE    WESTMINSTER    ASSEMBLA'      145 

vivid  forms  of  human  thought  were  clad,  we  stand 
closer  to  the  inner  mind  of  the  serious  men  and  women 
of  that  time  than  when  we  ponder  political  discus- 
sions either  of  soldiers  or  of  Parliament.  The  slow 
fluctuations  of  the  war  from  Edgehill  to  Marston  left 
room  for  strange  expansions  in  the  sphere  of  religion 
quite  as  important  as  the  fortune  of  battle  itself.  In 
a  puritan  age  citizenship  in  the  secular  state  fills  a 
smaller  space  in  the  imaginations  of  men,  than  the 
mystic  fellowship  of  the  civitas  Dei,  the  city  of  God; 
hence  the  passionate  concern  in  many  a  problem  that 
for  us  is  either  settled  or  indifferent.  Nor  should 
we  forget  what  is  a  main  element  in  the  natural  his- 
tory of  intolerance,  that  in  such  times  error  ranks  as 
sin  and  even  the  most  monstrous  shape  of  sin. 

The  aggressions  of  the  Commons  upon  the  old 
church  order  had  begun,  as  we  have  seen,  by  a 
demand  for  the  ejectment  of  the  bishops  from  the 
Lords.  The  Lords  resisted  so  drastic  a  change  in  the 
composition  of  their  own  body  (1641).  The  tide 
rose,  passion  became  more  intense,  judgment  waxed 
more  uncompromising,  and  at  the  instigation  of  Crom- 
well and  Vane  resolute  proposals  were  made  in  the 
Commons  for  the  abolition  of  the  Episcopal  office  and 
the  transfer  to  lay  commissions  instituted  and  con- 
trolled by  Parliament,  of  Episcopal  functions  of  juris- 
diction and  ordination.  On  what  scheme  the  church 
should  be  reconstructed  neither  Cromwell  nor  Par- 
liament had  considered,  any  more  than  they  consid- 
ered in  later  years  what  was  to  follow  a  fallen  mon- 
archy. In  the  Grand  Remonstrance  of  the  winter  of 
1 64 1,  the  Commons  desired  a  general  synod  of  the 
most  grave,  pious,  learned,  and  judicious  divines  of 
this  island,  to  consider  all  things  necessary  for  the 
peace  and  good  government  of  the  church.     It  was 


146  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

not  until  the  summer  of  1643  that  this  synod  was  at 
last  after  half  a  dozen  efforts  actually  appointed  by 
Parliament. 

The  flames  of  fanaticism  were  blazing  with  a  fierce- 
ness not  congenial  to  the  English  temper,  and  such 
as  has  hardly  possessed  Englishmen  before  or  since. 
Puritanism  showed  itself  to  have  a  most  unlovely  side. 
It  was  not  merely  that  controversy  was  rough  and 
coarse,  though  it  was  not  much  less  coarse  in  Puritan 
pulpits  than  it  had  been  on  the  lips  of  German  friars 
or  Jesuit  polemists  in  earlier  stages.  In  Burton's 
famous  sermon  for  which  he  suffered  punishment  so 
barbarous,  he  calls  the  bishops  Jesuitical  polyprag- 
matics,  anti-Christian  mushrooms,  factors  for  anti- 
Christ,  dumb  dogs,  ravening  wolves,  robbers  of  souls, 
miscreants.  Even  the  august  genius  of  Milton  could 
not  resist  the  virulent  contagion  of  the  time.  As  diffi- 
culties multiplied,  coarseness  grew  into  ferocity.  A 
preacher  before  the  House  of  Commons  so  early  as 
1641  cried  out  to  them:  "What  soldier's  heart  would 
not  start  deliberately  to  come  into  a  subdued  city  and 
take  the  little  ones  upon  the  spear's  point,  to  take 
them  by  the  heels  and  beat  out  their  brains  against 
the  wall?  What  inhumanity  and  barbarousness 
would  this  be  thought?  Yet  if  this  work  be  to  re- 
venge God's  church  against  Babylon,  he  is  a  blessed 
man  that  takes  and  dashes  the  little  ones  against  the 
stones."  The  fiery  rage  of  the  old  Red  Dragon  of 
Rome  itself,  or  the  wild  battle-cries  of  Islam,  were 
hardly  less  appalling  than  these  dark  transports  of 
Puritan  imagination.  Even  prayers  were  often  more 
like  imprecation  than  intercession.  When  Montrose 
lay  under  sentence  of  death,  he  declined  the  offer  of 
the  Presbyterian  ministers  to  pray  with  him,  for  he 
knew  that  the  address  to  Heaven  would  be :  "Lord, 


THE    WESTMINSTER    ASSEMBLY       147 

vouchsafe  yet  to  touch  the  obdurate  heart  of  this 
proud,  incorrigible  sinner,  this  wicked,  perjured,  trai- 
torous, and  profane  person,  who  refuses  to  hearken 
to  the  voice  of  thy  kirk."  It  was  a  day  of  wrath,  and 
the  gospel  of  charity  was  for  the  moment  sealed. 

The  ferment  was  tremendous.  Milton,  in  striking 
words,  shows  us  how  London  of  that  time  (1644), 
the  city  of  refuge  encompassed  with  God's  protec- 
tion, was  not  busier  as  a  shop  of  war  with  hammers 
and  anvils  fashioning  out  the  instruments  of  armed 
justice,  than  it  was  with  pens  and  heads  sitting  by 
their  studious  lamps,  musing,  searching,  and  revolv- 
ing new  ideas.  Another  observer  of  a  different  spirit 
tells  how  hardly  a  day  passed  (1646)  without  the 
brewing  or  broaching  of  some  new  opinion.  People 
are  said  to  esteem  an  opinion  a  mere  diurnal — after  a 
day  or  two  scarce  worth  the  keeping.  'Tf  any  man 
have  lost  his  religion,  let  him  repair  to  London,  and 
ril  warrant  him  he  shall  find  it.  I  had  almost  said, 
too,  and  if  any  man  has  a  religion,  let  him  come  but 
hither  now,  and  he  shall  go  near  to  lose  it."  Well 
might  the  zealots  of  uniformity  tremble.  Louder 
and  more  incessant,  says  Baxter,  than  disputes  about 
infant  baptism  or  antinomianism,  waxed  their  call 
for  liberty  of  conscience,  that  every  man  might  preach 
and  do  in  matters  of  religion  what  he  pleased.  All 
these  disputes,  and  the  matters  of  them,  found  a  focus 
in  the  Westminster  Assembly  of  Divines. 

It  was  nominally  composed  of  one  hundred  and 
fifty  members,  including  not  only  Anglicans,  but  An- 
glican bishops,  and  comprehending,  besides  divines, 
ten  lay  peers  and  twice  as  many  members  of  the  other 
House.  Eight  Scottish  commissioners  were  included. 
The  Anglicans  never  came,  or  else  they  immediately 
fell   off;  the   laymen,   with  the  notable  exception  of 


148  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

Selden,  took  but  a  secondary  part ;  and  it  became 
essentially  a  body  of  divines,  usually  some  sixty  of 
them  in  attendance.  The  field  appointed  for  their 
toil  was  indeed  enormous.  It  was  nothing  less  than 
the  reorganization  of  the  spiritual  power,  subject  to 
the  shifting  exigencies  of  the  temporal,  with  divers 
patterns  to  choose  from  in  the  reformed  churches  out 
of  England.  Faith,  worship,  discipline,  government, 
were  all  comprehended  in  their  vast  operation.  They 
were  instructed  to  organize  a  scheme  for  a  church ;  to 
compose  a  directory  in  place  of  the  Prayer  Book;  to 
set  forth  in  a  confession  of  faith  what  men  must  be- 
lieve; to  draw  up  a  catechism  for  teaching  the  true 
creed.  Work  that  in  itself  would  have  sufficed  for 
giants,  was  complicated  by  the  play  of  politics  out- 
side, and  the  necessity  of  serving  many  changing  mas- 
ters. The  important  point  is  that  their  masters  were 
laymen.  The  assembly  was  simply  to  advise.  Par- 
liament had  no  more  intention  of  letting  the  divines 
escape  its  own  direct  control  than  Henry  VIII  or  Eliz- 
abeth would  have  had.  The  assembly  was  the  creature 
of  a  Parliamentary  ordinance.  To  Parliament  it  must 
report,  and  without  assent  of  Parliament  its  proceed- 
ings must  come  to  naught.  This  was  not  all.  The  Sol- 
emn League  and  Covenant  in  the  autumn  of  1643 
and  the  entry  of  the  Scots  upon  the  scene,  gave  a 
new  turn  to  religious  forces,  and  ended  in  a  remark- 
able transformation  of  political  parties.  The  Scots 
had  exacted  the  Covenant  from  the  Parliamentary 
leaders  as  the  price  of  military  aid,  and  the  Covenant 
meant  the  reconstruction  of  the  English  Church,  not 
upon  the  lines  of  modified  Episcopacy  or  Presbytery 
regulated  by  lay  supremacy  but  upon  Presbytery  after 
the  Scottish  model  of  church  government  by  clerical 
assemblies. 


THE    WESTMINSTER    ASSEMBLY      149 

The  divines  first  met  in  Henry  VH's  chapel  (July 
I,  1643),  but  when  the  weather  grew  colder  they 
moved  into  the  Jerusalem  Chamber — that  old-world 
room,  where  anybody  apt,  "in  the  spacious  circuit  of 
his  musing/'  to  wander  among  far-off  things,  may 
find  so  many  memorable  associations,  and  none  of 
them  more  memorable  than  this.  For  most  of  five 
years  and  a  half  they  sat — over  one  thousand  sittings. 
On  five  days  in  the  week  they  labored  from  nine  in 
the  morning  until  one  or  two  in  the  afternoon.  Each 
member  received  four  shillings  a  day,  and  was  fined 
sixpence  if  he  was  late  for  prayers  at  half-past  eight. 
Not  seldom  they  had  a  day  of  fasting,  when  they 
spent  from  nine  to  five  very  graciously.  "After  Dr. 
Twisse  had  begun  with  a  brief  prayer,  Mr.  Marshall 
prayed  large  two  hours  most  divinely.  After,  Mr. 
Arrowsmith  preached  one  hour,  then  a  psalm,  there- 
after Mr.  Vines  prayed  near  two  hours,  and  Mr.  Pal- 
mer preached  one  hour,  and  Mr.  Seaman  prayed  near 
two  hours,  then  a  psalm.  After  Mr.  Henderson 
brought  them  to  a  short,  sweet  conference  of  the  heart 
confessed  in  the  assembly,  and  other  seen  faults  to  be 
remedied,  and  the  convenience  to  preach  against  all 
sects,  especially  Baptist  and  Antinomians."  These 
prodigies  of  physical  endurance  in  spiritual  exercises 
were  common  in  those  days.  Johnston  of  Warriston 
intending  to  spend  an  hour  or  two  in  prayer,  once  car- 
ried his  devotions  from  six  in  the  morning  until 
he  was  amazed  by  the  bells  ringing  at  eight  in  the 
evening. 

There  were  learned  scholars  and  theologians,  but 
no  governing  churchman  of  the  grand  type  rose  up 
among  them — nobody  who  at  the  same  time  compre- 
hended states  and  the  foundation  of  states,  explored 
creeds  and  the  sources  of  creeds,  knew  man  and  the 


150  OLIVER  CROxMWELL 

heart  of  man.  No  Calvin  appeared,  nor  Knox,  nor 
\\'esley,  nor  Chalmers.  Alexander  Henderson  was 
possessed  of  many  gifts  in  argument,  persuasion, 
counsel,  but  he  had  not  the  spirit  of  action  and  com- 
mand. Sincere  Presbyterians  of  to-day  turn  impa- 
tiently aside  from  what  they  call  the  miserable  logo- 
machies of  the  Westminster  divines.  Even  in  that 
unfruitful  gymnastic,  though  they  numbered  pious 
and  learned  men,  they  had  no  athlete.  They  made 
no  striking  or  original  contribution  to  the  strong  and 
compacted  doctrines  of  Calvinistic  faith.  To  turn 
over  the  pages  of  Lightfoot's  journal  of  their  pro- 
ceedings is  to  understand  what  is  meant  by  the  de- 
scription of  our  seventeenth  century  as  the  middle  ages 
of  Protestantism.  Just  as  mediaeval  schoolmen  dis- 
cussed the  nature  and  existence  of  universals  in  one 
century,  and  the  mysteries  of  immortality  and  a  super- 
human First  Cause  in  another  century,  so  now  divines 
and  laymen  discussed  predestination,  justification, 
election,  reprobation,  and  the  whole  unfathomable 
body  of  the  theological  metaphysics  by  the  same 
method — verbal  logic  drawing  sterile  conclusions  from 
untested  authority. 

Happily  it  is  not  our  concern  to  follow  the  divines 
as  they  went  plowing  manfully  through  their  Con- 
fession of  faith.  They  were  far  from  accepting  the 
old  proposition  of  Bishop  Hall  that  the  most  useful 
of  all  books  of  theology  would  be  one  with  the  title 
of  "De  paucitate  credendorum"  of  the  fewness  of  the 
things  that  a  man  should  believe.  After  long  and 
tough  debates  about  the  decrees  of  election,  they  had 
duly  passed  the  heads  of  Providence,  Redemption. 
Covenant,  Justification,  Free  Will,  and  a  part  of  Per- 
severance. And  so  they  proceeded.  The  two  sides 
plied  one  another  with  arguments  oral  and  on  paper, 


THE    WESTMINSTER    ASSEMBLY      151 

plea  and  replication,  rejoinder  and  rebutter,  surre- 
joinder and  surrebutter.  They  contended,  says  hon- 
est Bailie,  tanquam  pro  arts  et  facis — as  if  for  hearth 
and  altar. 

It  was  not  until  May  (1647)  that  this  famous 
exposition  of  theological  truth  was  submitted  to  the 
House  of  Commons.  By  that  time  Parliament,  in 
deep  water,  had  other  things  to  think  of,  and  the 
Westminster  Confession  never  received  the  sanction 
of  the  State.  Nor  did  the  two  Catechisms,  which, 
along  with  the  Confession,  are  still  the  standards  not 
only  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  but  of  the  great  body 
of  Presbyterian  churches  grouped  all  over  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking world,  and  numbering  many  millions  of 
strenuous  adherents.  The  effect  of  familiarity  with 
the  Shorter  Catechism  upon  the  intellectual  character 
of  the  Scottish  peasantry,  and  the  connection  between 
Presbyterian  government  and  a  strongly  democratic 
turn  of  thought  and  feeling  in  the  community,  are 
accepted  commonplaces.  Perhaps  this  fruit  of  the 
labors  of  the  Westminster  Assembly,  appraise  it  as 
we  may,  was  in  one  sense  the  most  lasting  and  positive 
product  of  the  far-famed  Long  Parliament  that  set  it 
up  and  controlled  it. 


A  GREAT  group  of  questions,  one  following  another, 
arose  upon  the  very  threshold  of  the  Reformation. 
The  Pope  dislodged,  tradition  cast  forth,  the  open 
Bible  placed  in  the  emptied  shrine,  fresh  fountains 
of  spiritual  truth  and  life  unsealed  of  which  all  save 
the  children  of  reprobation  might  partake — a  long 
campaign  of  fierce  battles  was  next  fought  on  fields 
outside   of   purely   theologic   doctrine.     What   is   the 


152  OLIVER  CROiMWELL 

scriptural  form  of  church  government — prelacy,  pres- 
bytery, or  congregational  independence?  Who  was 
to  inherit  the  authority  of  the  courts  spiritual — the 
civil  magistrate  or  the  purified  and  reconstituted 
church?  Ought  either  bishop  or  synod  to  have  coer- 
cive jurisdiction  against  the  outward  man,  his  liberty, 
life,  or  estate?  Ought  the  state  to  impose  one  form 
of  church  government  upon  all  citizens ;  or  to  leave 
to  free  choice  both  form  of  government  and  submis- 
sion to  discipline;  or  to  favor  one  form,  but  without 
compulsion  on  individuals  who  favored  another? 
Ought  the  state  to  proscribe  or  punish  the  practices 
of  any  church  or  adhesion  to  any  faith?  These  were 
the  mighty  problems  that  had  now  first  been  brought 
to  the  front  in  England  by  a  great  revolution,  partly 
political,  partly  ecclesiastical,  and  wholly  unconscious, 
like  most  revolutions,  of  its  own  drift,  issues,  and 
result.  Few  more  determined  struggles  have  ever 
been  fought  on  our  sacred  national  battle-ground  at 
Westminster,  than  the  contest  between  the  Assembly 
of  Divines  and  the  Parliament.  The  divines  inspired 
from  Scotland  insisted  that  presbytery  was  of  divine 
right.  The  majority  of  the  Parliament,  true  to  Eng- 
lish traditions  and  instinct,  insisted  that  all  church 
government  was  of  human  institution  and  depended 
on  the  will  of  the  magistrate.  The  divines  contended 
that  presbytery  and  synod  were  to  have  the  unfet- 
tered right  of  inflicting  spiritual  censures,  and  deny- 
ing access  to  the  communion-table  to  all  whom  they 
should  choose  to  condemn  as  ignorant  or  scandalous 
persons.  The  Parliament  was  as  stubborn  that  the.se 
censures  were  to  be  confined  to  offenses  specified  by 
law,  and  with  a  right  of  appeal  to  a  lay  tribunal.  It 
was  the  mortal  battle  so  incessantly  renewed  in  that 
age  and  since,  between  the  principles  of  Calvin  and 


THE    WESTMINSTER    ASSEMBLY      153 

Knox  and  the  principles  imputed  to  Erastus.  the 
Swiss  physician  and  divine,  who  had  died  at  Heidel- 
berg in  1583. 

For  ten  days  at  a  time  the  assembly  debated  the 
right  of  every  particular  congregation  to  ordain  its 
own  officers.  For  thirty  days  they  debated  the  propo- 
sition that  particular  congregations  ought  to  be  united 
under  one  Presbyterian  government.  In  either  case 
the  test  was  Scripture;  what  had  happened  to  Tim- 
othy or  Titus;  how  the  Church  of  Antioch  had  stood 
to  the  first  church  at  Jerusalem;  whether  St.  Paul  had 
not  written  to  the  Philippians  words  that  were  a  con- 
secration of  presbytery.  The  Presbyterian  majority 
besought  the  aid  of  a  whole  army  of  Dutch  orthodox ; 
they  pressed  for  letters  from  France  and  from  Geneva, 
which  should  contain  grave  and  weighty  admonitions 
to  the  assembly  at  Westminster,  to  be  careful  to  sup- 
press all  schismatics,  and  the  mother  and  foster  of 
all  mischief,  the  independence  of  congregations.  On 
the  other  hand  the  half-dozen  Independents,  whom 
Cromwell  wished  to  strengthen  by  the  addition  of 
three  divines  of  the  right  sort  from  New  England, 
kept  up  a  spirited  resistance  against  the  driving  force 
of  the  orthodox  current.  A  deliberative  assembly 
tends  to  make  party  spirit  obdurate.  "Oh,  what  may 
not  pride  do!"  cries  Baxter;  "and  what  miscarriages 
will  not  faction  hide!"  The  Reconcilers,  who  called 
for  unity  in  necessary  things,  liberty  in  things  indiffer- 
ent, and  charity  in  all  things,  could  not  be  heard. 
The  breach  widened  as  time  went  on,  and  by  1645  ^^^ 
repair  was  hopeless.  The  conflict  in  its  progress 
made  more  definite  the  schism  between  Presbyterian 
and  Independent.  It  was  the  alliance  of  Independent 
and  Erastian  in  Parliament  that  finally  bafiled  the 
Presbyterian  after  the  Scottish  model,  and  hardened 


154  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

the  great  division,  until  what  had  been  legitimate 
difference  on  a  disputable  question  became  mutual 
hatred  between  two  infuriated  factions.  Baillie  says 
of  the  Independents  that  it  would  be  a  marvel  to  him 
if  such  men  should  always  prosper,  their  ways  were 
so  impious,  unjust,  ungrate,  and  every  way  hateful. 
One  Coleman,  an  Erastian,  gave  good  men  much  trou- 
ble by  defending,  with  the  aid  of  better  lawyers  than 
himself,  the  arguments  of  the  Erastian  doctor  against 
the  proposition  that  the  founder  of  Christianity  had 
instituted  a  church  government  distinct  from  the  civil, 
to  be  exercised  by  the  officers  of  the  church  without 
commission  from  the  magistrates.  Coleman  was  hap- 
pily stricken  with  death;  he  fell  in  an  ague,  and  after 
four  or  five  days  he  expired.  "It  is  not  good,"  runs 
the  dour  comment,  "to  stand  in  Christ's  way."  The 
divines  were  too  shrewd  not  to  perceive  how  it  was 
the  military  weakness  of  the  Scots  that  allowed  the 
Independents  with  their  heresies  to  ride  rough-shod 
over  them.  If  the  Scots  had  only  had  fifteen  thou- 
sand men  in  England,  they  said,  their  advice  on  doc- 
trine and  discipline  would  have  been  followed  quickly 
enough ;  if  the  Scottish  arms  had  only  been  successful 
last  year,  there  would  have  been  little  abstract  debat- 
ing. "It  's  neither  reason  nor  religion  that  stays  some 
men's  rage,  but  a  strong  army  bridling  them  with 
fear."  Such  were  the  plain  words  of  carnal  wisdom. 
A  story  is  told  of  a  Scot  and  an  Englishman  disput- 
ing on  the  question  of  soldiers  preaching.  Quoth  the 
Scot,  "Is  it  fit  that  Colonel  Cromwell's  soldiers  should 
preach  in  their  quarters,  to  take  away  the  minister's 
function?"  Quoth  the  Englishman,  "Truly  I  remem- 
ber they  made  a  gallant  sermon  at  Marston  Moor; 
that  was  one  of  the  best  sermons  that  hath  been 
preached  in  the  kingdom."     The  fortune  of  war,  in 


THE    WESTMINSTER    ASSEMBLY      155 

other  words,  carried  with  it  the  fortunes  of  theology 
and  the  churches. 

We  need  not  follow  the  vicissitudes  of  party,  or 
the  changing  shadows  of  military  and  political  events 
as  they  fell  across  the  zealous  scene.  One  incident 
of  the  time  must  be  noted.  While  presbytery  had 
been  fighting  its  victorious  battle  in  the  Jerusalem 
Chamber,  the  man  whose  bad  steering  had  wrecked 
his  church  was  sent  to  the  block.  The  execution  of 
Archbishop  Laud  (January  10,  1645)  ''s  the  best  of 
all  the  illustrations  of  the  hard  temper  of  the  time. 
Laud  was  more  than  seventy  years  old.  He  had  been 
for  nearly  five  years  safe  under  lock  and  key  in  the 
Tower.  His  claws  were  effectually  clipped,  and  it 
was  certain  that  he  would  never  again  be  able  to  do 
mischief,  or  if  he  were,  that  such  mischief  as  he  could 
do  would  be  too  trivial  to  be  worth  thinking  of,  in 
sight  of  such  a  general  catastrophe  as  could  alone 
make  the  old  man's  return  to  power  possible.  The 
execution  of  Strafford  may  be  defended  as  a  great 
act  of  retaliation  or  prevention,  done  with  grave  po- 
litical purpose.  So,  plausibly  or  otherwise,  may  the 
execution  of  King  Charles.  No  such  considerations 
justify  the  execution  of  Laud  several  years  after  he 
had  committed  the  last  of  his  imputed  offenses  and 
had  been  stripped  of  all  power  of  ever  committing 
more.  It  is  not  necessary  that  we  should  echo  Dr. 
Johnson's  lines  about  Rebellion's  vengeful  talons  seiz- 
ing on  Laud,  while  Art  and  Genius  hovered  weeping 
round  his  tomb;  but  if  we  rend  the  veil  of  romance 
from  the  Cavalier,  we  are  bound  not  to  be  overdazzled 
by  the  halo  of  sanctity  in  the  Roundhead. 

It  was  in  1646  that  Parliament  consummated  what 
would  have  seemed  so  extraordinary  a  revolution  to 
the  patriots  of  1640  by  the  erection  of  the  Presby- 


156  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

terian  system  of  Scotland,  though  with  marked  reser- 
vations of  ParHamentary  control,  into  the  Established 
Church  of  England.  The  uniformity  that  had  rooted 
itself  in  Scotland,  and  had  been  the  center  of  the 
Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  was  now  nominally 
established  throughout  the  island.  But  in  name  only. 
It  was  soon  found  in  the  case  of  church  and  state 
alike,  that  to  make  England  break  with  her  history  is 
a  thing  more  easily  said  than  done,  as  it  has  ever  been 
in  all  her  ages.  The  Presbyterian  system  struck  no 
abiding  root.  The  Assembly,  as  a  Scottish  historian 
has  pointedly  observed,  though  called  by  an  English 
Parliament,  held  on  English  ground,  and  composed 
of  English  divines,  with  only  a  few  Scotsmen  among 
them,  still,  as  things  turned  out,  existed  and  labored 
mainly  for  Scotland. 


Ill 


The  deliberations  of  the  divines  were  haunted 
throughout  by  the  red  specter  of  toleration.  For  the 
rulers  of  states  a  practical  perplexity  rose  out  of  Prot- 
estantism. How  was  a  system  resting  on  the  rights 
of  individual  conscience  and  private  reason  to  be 
reconciled  with  either  authority  or  unity?  The  natu- 
ral history  of  toleration  seems  simple,  but  it  is  in 
truth  one  of  the  most  complex  of  all  the  topics  that 
engage  either  the  reasoner  or  the  ruler;  and  until 
nations  were  by  their  mental  state  ready  for  religious 
toleration,  a  statesman  responsible  for  order  naturally 
paused  before  committing  himself  to  a  system  that 
might  only  mean  that  the  members  of  rival  commu- 
nions would  fly  at  one  another's  throats,  like  Catholics 
and  Huguenots  in  France,  or  Spaniards  and  Beggars 
in  Holland.     In  history  it  is  our  business  to  try  to 


THE    WESTMINSTER    ASSEMBLY      157 

understand  the  possible  reasons  and  motives  for  every- 
thing, even  for  intolerance. 

Religious  toleration  was  no  novelty  either  in  great 
books  or  in  the  tractates  of  a  day.  Men  of  broad 
minds,  like  More  in  England  and  L'Hopital  in  France, 
had  not  lived  for  nothing;  and  though  Bacon  never 
made  religious  tolerance  a  political  dogma,  yet  his 
exaltation  of  truth,  knowledge,  and  wisdom  tended  to 
point  that  way.  Nor  should  we  forget  that  Crom- 
well's age  is  the  age  of  Descartes  and  of  Grotius, 
men  whose  lofty  and  spacious  thinking,  both  directly 
and  indirectly,  contributed  to  create  an  atmosphere 
of  freedom  and  of  peace  in  which  it  is  natural  for 
tolerance  to  thrive.  To  say  nothing  of  others,  the 
irony  of  Montaigne  in  the  generation  before  Crom- 
well was  born  had  drawn  the  true  moral  from  the 
bloodshed  and  confusion  of  the  long  fierce  wars  be- 
tween Catholic  and  Huguenot.  Theories  in  books  are 
wont  to  prosper  or  miscarry  according  to  circum- 
stances, but  beyond  theory  Presbyterians  at  West- 
minster might  have  seen  both  in  France  and  in  Hol- 
land rival  professions  standing  side  by  side,  each 
protected  by  the  state.  At  one  moment,  in  this  very 
era,  no  fewer  than  five  Protestants  held  the  rank  of 
marshals  of  France.  The  Edict  of  Nantes,  indeed, 
while  it  makes  such  a  figure  in  history  (i 598-1685), 
was  much  more  of  a  forcible  practical  concordat  than 
a  plan  reposing  on  anybody's  acceptance  of  a  deliber- 
ate doctrine  of  toleration.  It  was  never  accepted  by 
the  clergy,  any  more  than  it  was  in  heart  accepted  by 
the  people.  Even  while  the  edict  was  in  full  force, 
it  was  at  the  peril  of  his  authority  with  his  flock  that 
either  Catholic  bishop  or  Protestant  pastor  in  France 
preached  moderation  toward  the  other  communion. 
It  was  not  French  example,  but  domestic  necessities, 


1 58  OLIVER   CROMWELL 

that  here  tardily  brought  toleration  into  men's  minds. 
Helwys,  Busher,  Brown,  sectaries  whose  names  find 
no  place  in  literary  histories,  had  from  the  opening 
of  the  century  argued  the  case  for  toleration,  before 
the  more  powerful  plea  of  Roger  Williams;  but  the 
ideas  and  practices  of  Amsterdam  and  Leyden  had 
perhaps  a  wider  influence  than  either  colonial  exiles 
or  homebred  controversialists,  in  gradually  producing 
a  political  school  committed  to  freedom  of  conscience. 

The  limit  set  to  toleration  in  the  earlier  and  un- 
clouded days  of  the  Long  Parliament  had  been  fixed 
and  definite.  So  far  as  Catholics  were  concerned, 
Charles  stood  for  tolerance,  and  the  Puritans  for  rig- 
orous enforcement  of  persecuting  laws.  In  that  great 
protest  for  freedom,  the  Grand  Remonstrance  itself, 
they  had  declared  it  to  be  far  from  their  purpose  or 
desire  to  let  loose  the  golden  reins  of  discipline  and 
government  in  the  church,  to  leave  private  persons  or 
particular  congregations  to  take  up  what  form  of 
divine  service  they  pleased ;  "for  we  hold  it  requisite," 
they  went  on  to  say,  "that  there  should  be  throughout 
the  whole  realm  a  conformity  to  that  order  which 
the  laws  enjoin  according  to  the  Word  of  God."  It 
was  the  rise  of  the  Independents  to  political  power 
that  made  toleration  a  party  question,  and  forced  it 
into  the  salient  and  telling  prominence  that  is  reserved 
for  party  questions. 

The  Presbyterian  majority  in  principle  answered 
the  questions  of  toleration  and  uniformity,  just  as 
Laud  or  the  Pope  would  have  answered  them — one 
church,  one  rule.  The  Catholic  built  upon  St.  Peter's 
rock;  the  Presbyterian  built  upon  Scripture.  Just  as 
firmly  as  the  Catholic,  he  believed  in  a  complete  and 
exclusive  system,  "and  the  existence  of  a  single  sepa- 
ratist congregation  was  at  once  a  blot  on  its  beauty 


THE    WESTMINSTER    ASSEMBLY      159 

and  a  blow  at  its  very  basis"  (Shaw).  Liberty  of 
conscience  was  in  his  eyes  only  liberty  of  error,  and 
departure  from  uniformity  only  meant  a  hideous  de- 
formity and  multiformity  of  blaspheming  sects.  The 
Independent  and  the  Baptist  too  were  equally  con- 
vinced of  the  scriptural  source  and  the  divine  right 
of  their  own  systems.  It  was  political  necessity  that 
drove  them  reluctantly  not  only  to  work  as  partners 
with  Erastian  lawyers  in  Parliament,  but  to  extend 
the  theoretic  basis  of  their  own  claim  for  toleration 
until  it  comprehended  the  whole  swarm  of  Anabap- 
tists, Antinomians,  Nullifidians,  and  the  rest.  Crom- 
well's toleration  was  different.  It  came  easy  to  his 
natural  temperament  when  practical  convenience  rec- 
ommended or  demanded  it.  When  he  told  Crawford 
early  in  the  war  that  the  state  in  choosing  men  to 
serve  it  takes  no  notice  of  their  opinions,  he  struck 
the  true  note  of  toleration  from  the  statesman's  point 
of  view.  His  was  the  practical  temper  which  first 
asks  about  a  thing  how  far  it  helps  or  hinders  the 
doing  of  some  other  given  thing,  and  the  question 
now  with  him  was  whether  tolerance  would  help  or 
hinder  union  and  force  in  military  strength  and  the 
general  objects  of  the  war. 

A  grander  intellect  than  Cromwell's  had  entered 
the  arena,  for  before  the  end  of  the  year  of  Marston 
"Areopagitica"  had  appeared,  the  noble  English  classic 
of  spiritual  and  speculative  freedom.  It  was  Milton's 
lofty  genius  that  did  the  work  of  bringing  a  great 
universal  idea  into  active  relation  with  what  all  men 
could  understand,  and  what  all  practical  men  wished 
for.  There  were  others,  indeed,  who  set  the  doctrine 
of  toleration  in  a  fuller  light;  but  in  Milton's  writings 
on  church  government  he  satisfies  as  well  as  Socinus, 
or  Roger  Williams,  or  any  of  his  age,  the  test  that  has 


i6o  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

been  imposed  of  making  toleration  "at  once  a  moral, 
a  political,  and  a  theological  dogma.  With  him  the 
law  of  tolerance  is  no  birth  of  scepticism  or  languor 
or  indifference.  It  is  no  politician's  argument  for 
reconciling  freedom  of  conscience  with  pul)lic  order, 
nor  is  it  a  pungent  intellectual  demonstration  like 
Bayle's,  half  a  century  later.  Intolerance  with  Milton 
is  dishonor  to  the  victim,  dishonor  to  the  tyrant. 
The  fountainhead  from  which  every  worthy  enterprise 
issues  forth  is  a  pious  and  just  honoring  of  ourselves ; 
it  is  the  sanctity  and  freedom  of  the  man's  own  soul. 
On  this  austere  self-esteem  the  scornful  distinction 
between  lay  and  cleric  is  an  outrage.  The  coercive 
power  of  ecclesiastics  is  an  impious  intrusion  into  the 
inner  sanctuary.  Shame  may  enter,  and  remorse  and 
reverence  for  good  men  may  enter,  and  a  dread  of 
becoming  a  lost  wanderer  from  the  communion  of  the 
just  and  holy  may  enter,  but  never  the  boisterous  and 
secular  tyranny  of  an  unlawful  and  unscriptural  juris- 
diction. Milton's  moving  argument,  at  once  so  deli- 
cate and  so  haughty,  for  the  rights  and  self-respecting 
obligations  of  "that  inner  man  which  may  be  termed 
the  spirit  of, the  soul,"  is  the  hidden  mainspring  of  the 
revolt  against  formalism,  against  authority,  and  al- 
most against  church  organization  in  any  of  its  forms. 
And  it  is  the  true  base  of  toleration.  Alas,  even  Mil- 
ton halts  and  stammers  when  he  comes  to  ask  him- 
self why,  on  the  same  arguments,  popery  may  not 
plead  for  toleration.  Here  he  can  only  fall  back  upon 
the  regulation  commonplaces. 

Milton's  ideas,  which  were  at  the  heart  of  Crom- 
well's vaguer  and  less  firmly  molded  thinking,  were 
in  direct  antagonism  to  at  least  three  broad  principles 
that  hitherto  ruled  the  minds  of  men.  These  ideas 
were  fatal  to  uniformity  of  belief,  not  merely  as  a 


THE    WESTMINSTER    ASSEMBLY      i6i 

thing  within  reach,  hut  as  an  object  to  be  desired. 
They  shattered  and  destroyed  Authority,  whether  of 
clergy  or  laity,  or  of  a  king  by  the  grace  of  God. 
Finally  they  dealt  one  of  the  blows  that  seem  so 
naturally  to  mark  the  course  of  all  modern  revolu- 
tions to  History  as  a  moral  power.  For  it  is  the 
essence  of  every  appeal  to  reason  or  to  the  individual 
conscience  to  discard  the  heavy  woven  garments  of 
tradition,  custom,  inheritance,  prerogative,  and  an- 
cient institution.  History  becomes,  in  Milton's  own 
exorbitant  phrase,  no  more  than  the  perverse  iniquity 
of  sixteen  hundred  years.  Uniformity,  authority,  his- 
tory— to  shake  these  was  to  move  the  foundations  of 
the  existing  world  in  England.  History,  however, 
shows  itself  a  standing  force.  It  is  not  a  dead,  but  a 
living  hand.  The  sixteen  hundred  years  that  Milton 
found  so  perverse  had  knit  fibers  into  our  national 
growth  that  even  Cromwell  and  all  the  stern  zealotries 
of  Puritanism  were  powerless  to  pluck  out. 


IV 


Events  made  toleration  in  its  full  Miltonic  breadth 
the  shibboleth.  In  principle  and  theory  it  enlarged 
its  way  both  in  Parliament  and  the  army,  in  associa- 
tion with  the  general  ideas  of  political  liberalism,  and 
became  a  practical  force.  Every  war  tends  to  create 
a  peace  party,  even  if  for  no  other  cause,  yet  from  the 
innate  tendency  of  men  to  take  sides.  By  the  end  of 
the  year  of  Marston  Moor  political  differences  of 
opinion  upon  the  terms  of  peace  had  become  definitely 
associated  with  the  ecclesiastical  difference  between 
Presbyterian  and  Independent.  The  Presbyterians 
were  the  peace  men,  and  the  Independents  were  for 


1 62  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

relentless  war  until  the  ends  of  war  should  be  gained. 
Henceforth  these  are  the  two  great  party  names,  and 
of  the  Independents  Cromwell's  energy  and  his  mili- 
tary success  rapidly  made  him  the  most  powerful 
figure. 

When  it  was  that  Cromwell  embraced  Independent 
views  of  church  organization  we  cannot  with  pre- 
cision tell,  nor  does  it  matter.  He  deferred  signing 
the  Presbyterian  Covenant  as  long  as  possible  (Feb- 
ruary. 1644).  He  was  against  exclusion  and  pro- 
scription, but  on  grounds  of  policy,  and  from  no 
reasoned  attachment  to  the  ideal  of  a  free  or  congre- 
gational church.  He  had  a  kindness  for  zealots,  be- 
cause zeal,  enthusiasm,  almost  fanaticism,  was  in  its 
best  shape  his  own  temper,  and  even  in  its  worst 
shape  promoted  or  protected  his  own  policy.  When 
his  policy  of  war  yet  hung  in  the  balance  it  was  the 
Independents  who  by  their  action,  views,  and  temper 
created  his  opportunity.  By  their  fervor  and  sincerity 
they  partially  impressed  him  with  their  tenets,  and 
opened  his  mind  to  a  range  of  new  ideas  that  lay 
beyond  their  own.  Unhappily  in  practice,  when  the 
time  came,  Puritan  toleration  went  little  further  than 
Anglican  intolerance. 


I 


CHAPTER    IV 


THE    NEW    MODEL 


AFTER  the  victory  at  Marston,  followed  as  it  was 
by  the  surrender  of  York,  men  expected  other 
decisive  exploits  from  Lord  Manchester  and  his  tri- 
umphant army.  He  was  directed  to  attend  on  the 
motions  of  the  indomitable  Rupert,  in  whom  the  dis- 
aster before  the  walls  of  York  seemed  to  have  stirred 
fresh  energy.  Manchester  saw  a  lion  in  every  path. 
The  difficulties  he  made  were  not  devoid  of  reason, 
but  a  nation  in  a  crisis  seeks  a  general  whom  difficul- 
ties confront  only  to  be  overcome. 

Essex  meanwhile  (September,  1644)  had  been  over- 
taken by  grievous  disaster  in  the  southwest.  Escaping 
by  sea  from  Plymouth,  he  left  his  army  to  find  their 
way  out  by  fighting  or  surrender  as  best  they  could. 
So  great  was  his  influence  and  popularity,  than  even  in 
face  of  this  miscarriage,  Essex  almost  at  once  received 
a  new  command.  Manchester  was  to  cooperate  with 
him  in  resisting  the  king's  eastward  march  from  Corn- 
wall to  his  fixed  headquarters  at  Oxford.  He  pro- 
fesses to  obey,  but  he  loiters,  delays,  and  finds  excuses, 
until  even  the  Derby  House  Committee  lose  patience 
and  send  a  couple  of  their  members  to  kindle  a  little 
fire  in  him,  just  as  in  the  next  century  the  French 

163 


i64  OLIVER    CROM\\'ELL 

Convention  used  to  send  two  commissioners  to  spur 
on  the  revolutionary  generals.  "Destroy  but  the 
king's  army,"  cried  Waller,  "and  the  work  is  ended." 
At  length  the  forces  of  Essex,  Waller,  and  Manches- 
ter combined,  and  attacked  the  king  at  Newbury. 
In  this  second  battle  of  New^bury  (October  27,  1644), 
though  the  Parliamentarians  under  Manchester  and 
Waller  w-ere  nearly  two  to  one,  the  result  w^as  so  little 
conclusive  that  the  king  made  his  way  almost  without 
pursuit  from  the  field.  He  even  returned  within  a 
fortnight,  offered  battle  once  more  on  the  same 
ground,  and  as  the  challenge  was  declined  returned  at 
his  ease  to  Oxford. 

At  length  vexation  at  inactivity  and  delay  grew^  so 
strong  that  Cromw^ell  (November  25),  seizing  the 
apt  moment  as  was  his  w^ont,  startled  the  House  by 
opening  articles  of  charge  against  his  commander. 
Manchester, 'he  said,  ever  since  the  victory  of  Marston 
Moor,  had  acted  as  if  he  deemed  that  to  be  enough ; 
had  declined  every  opportunity  of  further  advantage 
upon  the  enemy ;  and  had  lost  occasion  upon  occasion, 
as  if  he  thought  the  king  too  low^  and  the  Parliament 
too  high.  Xo  man  had  ever  less  in  him  than  Crom- 
well of  the  malcontent  subordinate.  *'At  this  time," 
Waller  says  of  him  early  in  1645,  "^'^^  ^^^  never 
shown  extraordinary  parts,  nor  do  I  think  he  did 
himself  believe  that  he  had  them;  for  although  he  was 
blunt,  he  did  not  bear  himself  with  pride  or  disdain. 
As  an  officer  he  w^as  obedient,  and  did  never  dispute 
my  orders  or  argue  upon  them."  His  letters  to  Fair- 
fax at  a  later  date  are  a  pattern  of  the  affectionate 
loyalty  due  from  a  man  second  in  conmiand  to  a  gen- 
eral whom  he  trusts.  What  alarmed  him  w^as  not 
Manchester's  backwardness  in  action,  his  aversion  to 
engagement,    his    neglect    of    opportunities,    but    the 


I 


From  the  original  portrait  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 
SIR  WILLIAM  WALLER. 


THE    NEW    MODEL  165 

growing  certainty  that  there  was  behind  all  this  half- 
heartedness  some  actual  principle  of  downright  un- 
willingness to  prosecute  the  war  to  a  full  victory,  and 
a  deliberate  design  not  to  push  the  king  too  hard  nor 
to  reduce  him  too  low.  Cromwell  recalled  many  ex- 
pressions of  Manchester  that  plainly  betrayed  a  desire 
not  to  end  the  war  by  the  sword,  but  to  make  a  peace 
on  terms  that  were  to  his  own  taste.  On  one  occa- 
sion the  advocates  of  a  fight  urged  that  to  let  the  king 
get  off  unassailed  would  strengthen  his  position  at 
home  and  abroad,  whereas  if  they  only  beat  him  now, 
he  and  his  cause  were  forever  ruined.  Manchester 
vehemently  urged  the  alternative  risks.  "If  we  beat 
the  king  ninety-nine  times,"  he  cried,  "he  will  be  king 
still  and  his  posterity,  and  we  subjects  still ;  but  if  he 
beat  us  but  once,  we  shall  be  hanged  and  our  posterity 
undone."  "If  that  be  so,"  said  Cromwell,  "why  did 
we  take  up  arms  at  first?  This  is  against  fighting 
ever  hereafter.  If  so,  let  us  make  peace,  let  it  be 
never  so  basely." 

Recriminations  were  abundant.  The  military  ques- 
tion became  a  party  question.  It  was  loudly  flung  out 
that  on  one  of  the  disputed  occasions  nobody  was  so 
much  against  fighting  as  Cromwell,  and  that  after 
Newbury  Cromwell,  when  ordered  to  bring  up  his 
horse,  asked  Manchester  in  a  discontented  manner 
whether  he  intended  to  flay  the  horse,  for  if  he  gave 
them  more  work  he  might  have  their  skins,  but  he 
would  have  no  service.  He  once  made  a  speech  very 
nearly  quarter  of  an  hour  long  against  running  the 
risk  of  an  attack.  While  insinuating  now  that  Man- 
chester had  not  acted  on  the  advice  of  his  councils  of 
war,  yet  he  had  at  the  time  loudly  declared  that  any 
man  was  a  villain  and  a  liar  who  said  any  such  thing. 
He  was  always  attributing  to  himself  all  the  praise 


i66  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

of  other  men's  actions.  Going  deeper  than  such 
stories  as  these,  were  the  reports  of  Cromwell's  in- 
flammatory sayings;  as  that  he  once  declared  to  Lord 
Manchester  his  hatred  of  all  peers,  wishing  there  was 
never  a  lord  in  England,  and  that  it  would  never  be 
well  till  Lord  Manchester  was  plain  Mr.  Montagu. 
Then  he  expressed  himself  with  contempt  of  the  West- 
minster divines,  of  whom  he  said  that  they  were  per- 
secutors of  honester  men  than  themselves.  He  de- 
sired to  have  none  in  the  army  but  such  as  were  of 
the  Independent  judgment,  because  these  would  with- 
stand any  peace  but  such  as  honest  men  would  aim 
at.  He  vowed  that  if  he  met  the  king  in  battle  he 
would  as  lief  fire  his  pistol  at  the  king  as  at  anybody 
else.  Of  their  brethren  the  Scots  he  had  used  con- 
tumelious speech,  and  had  even  said  that  he  would 
as  cheerfully  draw  the  sword  upon  them  as  upon  any 
in  the  army  of  the  king. 

The  exasperation  to  which  events  had  brought  both 
the  energetic  men  like  Cromwell  and  the  slower  men 
like  Essex  had  reached  a  dangerous  pitch.  One 
evening,  very  late,  the  two  lawyers  Whitelocke  and 
Maynard  were  summoned  to  attend  Lord  Essex. 
They  found  the  Scotch  commissioners  with  him,  along 
with  Holies,  Stapleton,  and  others  of  the  Presbyterian 
party.  The  question  was  whether  by  English  law 
Cromwell  could  be  tried  as  an  incendiary,  as  one  who 
kindles  coals  of  contention  and  raises  differences  in 
the  state  to  the  public  damage.  Of  this  move  the 
Scots  were  the  authors.  "Cromwell  is  no  good 
friend  of  ours,"  they  said,  "and  ever  since  our  army 
came  into  England  he  has  used  all  underhand  and 
cunning  means  to  detract  from  our  credit."  He  was 
no  friend  either  to  their  church.  Besides  that,  he  was 
little  of  a  well-wisher  to  the  lord-general,  whom  they 


THE    NEW    MODEL  167 

had  such  good  reason  to  love  and  honor.     Was  there 
law  enough  in  England  to  clip  his  wings? 

The  lawyers  gave  a  sage  reply.  English  law,  they 
said,  knows,  but  not  very  familiarly,  the  man  who 
kindles  the  burning  flames  of  contention.  But  were 
there  proofs  that  Oliver  was  such  an  incendiary?  It 
would  never  do  for  persons  of  so  great  honor  and 
authority  as  Essex  and  the  Scots  to  go  upon  ground 
of  which  they  were  not  sure.  Again,  had  they  con- 
sidered the  policy  of  the  thing?  'T  take  Lieutenant- 
General  Cromwell,"  said  Whitelocke,  "to  be  a  gentle- 
man of  quick  and  subtle  parts,  and  one  who  hath, 
especially  of  late,  gained  no  small  interest  in  the 
House  of  Commons;  nor  is  he  wanting  of  friends  in 
the  House  of  Peers,  or  of  abilities  in  himself  to  man- 
age his  own  defense  to  the  best  advantage."  The 
bitter  Holies  and  his  Presbyterian  group  were  very 
keen  for  proceeding;  they  thought  that  there  was 
plenty  of  evidence,  and  they  did  not  believe  Cromwell 
to  be  so  strong  in  the  Commons  as  was  supposed. 
In  the  end  it  was  the  Scots  who  judiciously  saved 
their  English  allies  from  falling  into  the  scrape,  and 
at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  party  broke  up. 
Whitelocke  or  another  secretly  told  Cromwell  what 
had  passed,  with  the  result  that  he  only  grew  more 
eager  than  before. 


A  HUNDRED  and  thirty  years  later  a  civil  war  again 
broke  out  among  the  subjects  of  the  British  crown. 
The  issues  were  not  in  form  the  same.  Cromwell 
fought  for  the  supremacy  of  Parliament  within  the 
kingdom;  Washington  fought  against  the  supremacy 
of   Parliament  over   Englishmen  across  the  Atlantic 


i68  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

Ocean.  It  is  possible  that  if  Charles  I  had  been  as 
astute  and  as  unscrupulous  as  George  III  the  struggle 
on  the  English  ground  might  ha\e  run  a  different 
course.  However  that  may  be,  in  each  case  the  two 
wars  were  in  their  earlier  stages  not  unlike,  and  both 
Marston  Moor  and  Bunker  Hill  rank  among  those 
engagements  that  have  a  lasting  significance  in  his- 
tory, where  military  results  were  secondary  to  moral 
effect.  It  was  these  encounters  that  first  sliowed  that 
the  champions  of  the  popular  cause  intended  and  were 
able  to  make  a  stand-up  fight  against  the  forces  of 
the  monarchy.  In  each  case  the  combatants  expected 
the  conflict  to  be  short.  In  each  case  the  battle  of 
popular  liberty  was  first  fought  by  weak  bodies,  ill- 
paid,  ill-disposed  to  discipline,  mounted  on  cart-horses, 
and  armed  with  fowling-pieces,  mainly  anxious  to  get 
back  to  their  homes  as  soon  as  they  could,  and  fluc- 
tuating from  month  to  month  with  the  humors,  the  jeal- 
ousies, or  the  means  of  the  separate  counties  in  Eng- 
land, or  the  separate  States  in  America.  "Short 
enlistments,"  said  Washington,  "and  a  mistaken  de- 
pendence on  militia,  have  been  the  origin  of  all  our 
misfortunes;  the  evils  of  a  standing  army  are  remote, 
but  the  consequence  of  wanting  one  is  certain  and 
inevitable  ruin.  To  carry  on  the  war  systematically, 
you  must  establish  your  army  on  a  permanent  and 
national  footing.''  What  Washington  said  in  1776 
was  just  what  Cromwell  said  in  1644. 

The  system  had  broken  down.  Officers  complained 
that  their  forces  melted  away,  because  men  thought 
they  would  be  better  treated  in  other  counties,  and 
all  comers  were  welcomed  by  every  association.  One 
general  grumbles  that  another  general  is  favored  in 
money  and  supplies.  The  governors  of  strong  towns 
are   in   hot    feud    with   the   committee   of   the   town. 


i 


THE    NEW    MODEL  169 

Furious  passages  took  place  between  pressed  men  and 
the  county  committees.  Want  of  pay  made  the  men 
sulky  and  mutinous,  and  there  were  always  "evil  in- 
struments" ready  to  trade  on  such  moods. 

The  Committee  of  Both  Kingdoms  write  to  a  col- 
onel commanding  in  the  west  in  the  year  of  Naseby, 
that  they  have  received  very  great  complaints  from  the 
country  of  the  intolerable  miscarriage  of  his  troopers ; 
already  great  disservice  is  done  to  the  Parliament  by 
the  robbing,  spoiling,  and  plundering  of  the  people, 
they  also  giving  extreme  offense  by  their  swearing, 
drinking,  and  all  kinds  of  debaucheries.  Exemplary 
punishment  should  be  inflicted  upon  such  notorious 
misdemeanants.  The  sufferings  of  some  parts  of  the 
country  were  almost  unbearable.  The  heavy  exac- 
tions of  the  Scots  in  Cumberland  and  Westmoreland 
for  month  after  month  brought  the  inhabitants  of 
those  counties  to  despair,  "and  necessity  forced  the 
distressed  people  in  some  parts  to  stand  upon  their 
defense  against  the  taxings  and  doings  of  the  sol- 
diers." In  Northumberland  and  Durham  the  charges 
on  the  farmers  were  so  heavy  that  the  landlord  had 
little  or  nothing,  and  was  only  too  glad  if  his  tenants 
could  but  keep  a  fire  in  the  farm-houses  and  save  them 
from  ruin.  The  Yorkshire  men  complained  that  they 
were  rated  in  many  districts  for  the  Scottish  horse  at 
more  than  double  the  value  of  their  lands  in  the  best 
times.  On  each  side  at  this  time  the  soldiers  lived  in 
the  main  upon  plunder.  They  carried  off  cattle  and 
cut  down  crops.  They  sequestered  rents  and  assessed 
fines.  They  kept  up  a  multitude  of  small  forts  and 
garrisons  as  a  shelter  to  flying  bands,  who  despoiled 
the  country  and  fought  off  enemies  who  would  fain 
have  done  the  same,  and  could  have  done  no  worse. 

Apart  from  the  squalor  and  brutality  intrinsic  in 


I70  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

war,  the  general  breakdown  of  economic  order  might 
well  alarm  the  instincts  of  the  statesman.  "Honest 
industry,"  cried  one  voice  of  woe,  "is  quite  discour- 
aged, being  almost  useless.  Most  men  that  have  es- 
tates are  betrayed  by  one  side  or  another,  plundered, 
sequestered.  Trading — the  life  and  substance  of 
thousands — decaying,  eaten  up  with  taxes ;  your  poor 
quite  ready  to  famish,  or  to  rise  to  pull  relief  from 
rich  men's  hands  by  violence.  Squeezed  by  taxes, 
racked  by  war,  the  anvil,  indeed,  of  misery,  upon 
which  all  the  strokes  of  vengeance  fell.''  A  covetous 
eye  had  long  been  cast  upon  the  endowments  of  the 
church.  "The  stop  of  trade  here,"  Baillie  wrote  even 
so  far  back  as  1641,  "has  made  this  people  much 
poorer  than  ordinary;  they  will  noways  be  able  to 
iDear  their  burden  if  the  cathedrals  fall  not."  From 
its  first  phases  in  all  countries  the  Reformation  of 
faith  went  with  designs  upon  the  church  lands.  And 
so  it  was  in  England  now. 

"You  will  never  get  your  service  done,"  said  Wal- 
ler, "until  you  have  an  army  entirely  your  own,  and 
at  your  own  command."  This  theme  was  the  prime 
element  in  the  New  Model — the  substitution  of  one 
army  under  a  single  commander-in-chief,  supported  by 
the  Parliament,  instead  of  sectional  armies  locally 
levied  and  locally  paid.  The  second  feature  was  the 
weeding  out  of  worthless  men,  a  process  stigmatized 
by  Presbyterians  out  of  temper  as  a  crafty  means  of 
filling  the  army  with  Sectaries,  a  vile  compound  of 
Jew,  Christian,  and  Turk,  mere  tools  of  usurping  am- 
bition. The  third  was  the  change  in  the  command. 
The  new  army  was  entrusted  to  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax 
as  commander-in-chief,  with  liberty  to  name  his  own 
officers  subject  to  ratification  by  the  two  Houses.    The 


THE    NEW    MODEL  171 

was  made  major-general,  and  the  higher  post  of  lieu- 
tenant-general was  left  significantly  open.  It  is  curi- 
ous to  find  that  the  army  was  reduced  in  numbers. 
The  army  of  which  Essex  was  lord-general  numbered 
twenty-five  thousand  foot  and  five  thousand  horse. 
The  army  of  the  New  Model  was  to  consist  only  of 
twenty-two  thousand  men  in  all,  fourteen  thousand 
four  hundred  being  foot  and  the  rest  horse  and  dra- 
goons. A  trooper  received  about  as  much  as  he  would 
have  got  for  labor  at  the  plow  or  with  the  wagon. 

The  average  substantive  wealth  in  the  army  was 
not  high.  Royalists  were  fond  of  taunting  them  with 
their  meager  means,  and  vowed  that  the  whole  pack 
of  them  from  the  lord-general  to  the  horse-farrier 
could  not  muster  one  thousand  pounds  a  year  in  land 
among  them.  Yet  in  Fairfax's  new  army,  of  the  offi- 
cers of  the  higher  military  rank  no  fewer  than  thirty 
out  of  thirty-seven  were  men  of  good  family.  Pride 
the  drayman,  and  Hewson  the  cobbler,  and  Okey  the 
ship-chandler,  were  among  the  minority  who  rose 
from  the  common  ranks.  When  Cromwell  spoke  to 
Hampden  about  an  army  of  decayed  serving-men  and 
tapsters,  his  own  men  had  never  been  of  the  tapster 
tribe.  They  were  most  of  them  freeholders  and  free- 
holders' sons,  who  upon  matter  of  conscience  engaged 
in  the  quarrel,  and  "thus  being  well  armed  within  by 
the  satisfaction  of  their  own  consciences,  and  without 
by  good  iron  arms,  they  would  as  one  man  stand 
firmly  and  charge  despeately." 

That  was  the  ideal  of  the  New  Model.  We  can- 
not, however,  assume  that  it  was  easy  or  possible  to 
procure  twenty  thousand  men  of  militant  conscience, 
willing  for  the  cause  to  leave  farm  and  shop,  wife 
and  home,  to  submit  themselves  to  iron  discipline, 
and  to  face  all  the  peril  of  battle,  murder,  and  sudden 


172  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

death.  Even  if  Cromwell's  ideal  was  the  prevailing 
type,  it  has  been  justly  pointed  out  that  constant  pay 
must  have  been  a  taking  inducement  to  volunteers  in 
a  time  when  social  disorder  had  made  work  scarce. 
If  we  remember,  again,  that  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  new  army  were  not  even  volunteers,  but  had  been 
impressed  against  their  will,  the  influence  of  Puritan 
zeal  can  hardly  have  been  universal,  even  if  it  were 
so  much  as  general. 

Baxter  had  good  opportunity  of  knowing  the  army 
well,  though  he  did  not  see  with  impartial  eyes,  and 
he  found  abundance  of  the  common  troopers  to  be 
honest,  sober,  and  right-thinking  men,  many  of  them 
tractable,  ready  to  hear  the  truth,  and  of  upright  in- 
tentions. But  the  highest  places  he  found  filled  by 
proud,  self-conceited,  hot-headed  Sectaries,  Cromwell's 
chief  favorites.  Then,  in  a  sentence,  he  unwittingly 
discloses  why  Cromwell  favored  them.  "By  their 
very  heat  and  activity,"  he  says,  "they  bore  down  the 
rest  and  carried  them  along;  these  were  the  soul  of 
the  army,  though  they  did  not  number  one  to  twenty 
in  it."  In  other  words,  what  Baxter  says  comes  to 
this,  that  they  had  the  quality  of  fire  and  resolution; 
and  fire  and  resolution  are  what  every  leader  in  a 
revolutionary  crisis  values  more  than  all  else,  even 
though  his  own  enthusiasm  in  the  common  cause 
springs  from  other  fountains  of  belief  or  runs  in  other 
channels.  Anabaptists,  Brownists,  Familists,  and  the 
rest  of  the  many  curious  swarms  from  the  Puritan 
hive,  none  of  them  repelled  Oliver,  because  he  knew 
that  the  fanatic  and  the  zealot,  for  all  their  absurdi- 
ties, had  the  root  of  the  matter  in  him. 

There  were  several  steps  in  the  process  of  military 
transformation.     In  December  the  Commons,  acting 


Drawn  by  George  T   Tobin  after  a  portrait  by  Van  Dyck  (ascribed  also  to  William  Dobson), 
by  permission  of  the  Countess  of  Warwick. 

JAMES    GRAHAM,  FIFTH    EARL   AND    FIRST   MARQUIS    OF    MONTROSE. 


THE    NEW    MODEL  173 

upon  Cromwell's  argument  from  the  suspicion  with 
which  people  looked  upon  Lords  and  Commoners  in 
places  of  high  command,  passed  the  famous  ordinance 
by  which  no  member  of  either  House  should  have 
any  office  of  civil  or  military  command.  In  January 
the  handful  who  now  composed  the  House  of  Lords 
threw  out  the  ordinance.  A  second  ordinance  was 
sent  up  to  them  in  February,  and  they  passed  it  with 
amendments.  In  the  middle  of  February  (1645)  ^^^^ 
New  Model  ordinance  was  finally  passed.  Six  weeks 
later  the  Self-denying  Ordinance  was  brought  back 
in  a  revised  form,  only  enacting  that  within  forty 
days  members  of  either  of  the  two  Houses  should  re- 
sign any  post  that  the  Parliament  had  intrusted  to 
them.  Essex,  Alanchester,  Denbigh,  Warwick,  Wal- 
ler, resigned  without  waiting  for  the  forty  days.  It 
must  have  been  an  anxious  moment,  for  Essex  was 
still  popular  with  the  great  body  of  the  army,  and  if 
he  had  chosen  to  defy  the  ordinance  he  might  possibly 
have  found  support  both  in  public  opinion  and  in  mili- 
tary force.  "But  he  was  not  for  such  enterprises," 
says  Clarendon,  with  caustic  touch.  Honorable  and 
unselfish  men  have  not  been  so  common  in  the  history 
of  states  and  armies,  that  we  need  approve  the 
sarcasm. 

Cromwell  followed  a  line  that  was  peculiar,  but 
might  easily  have  been  foretold.  The  historian  in 
our  own  day  tells  us  that  he  finds  it  hard  to  avoid 
the  conclusion  that  Cromwell  was  ready  to  sacrifice 
his  own  unique  position  in  the  army,  and  to  retire 
from  military  service.  This  is  surely  not  easy  to  be- 
lieve, any  more  than  it  is  easy  to  believe  another  story 
for  which  the  evidence  comes  to  extremely  little,  that 
at  another  time  he  meant  to  take  service  in  Germany. 


174  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

It  is  true  that  in  inspiring  and  supporting  the  first 
version  of  the  Self-denying  Ordinance,  Ohver  seemed 
to  be  closing  the  chapter  of  his  own  labors  in  the  field. 
Yet  nobody  can  deny  that  his  proceedings  were  ob- 
lique. It  is  incredible  that  the  post  of  lieutenant-gen- 
eral should  have  been  left  vacant,  otherwise  than  by 
design.  It  is  incredible  that  ev'^en  those  who  were 
most  anxious  to  pull  Cromwell  down  should  not  have 
foreseen  that  if  the  war  was  to  go  on,  the  most  suc- 
cessful and  popular  of  all  their  generals  would  inev- 
itably be  recalled.  In  Cromwell  it  would  have  been 
an  incredibly  foolish  underestimate  of  himself  to  sup- 
pose that  his  own  influence,  his  fierce  energy,  his  de- 
termination, and  his  natural  gift  of  the  military  eye, 
could  all  be  spared  at  an  hour  when  the  struggle  was 
drawmg  to  its  most  hazardous  stage. 

What  happened  actually  was  this.  The  second  Self- 
denying  Ordinance  was  passed  on  April  3d,  and  Crom- 
well was  bound  to  lay  down  all  military  command 
within  forty  days.  Meanwhile  he  was  despatched  to- 
ward the  west.  The  end  of  the  forty  days  found  him  in 
the  Oxford  country.  The  Parliament  passed  a  special 
ordinance,  not  without  misgivings  in  the  Lords,  ex- 
tending his  employment  for  forty  days  more  until 
June  22d.  Before  the  expiry  of  this  new  term,  Fair- 
fax and  the  officers,  following  the  Common  Council 
who  had  demanded  it  before,  petitioned  the  Houses 
to  sanction  the  appointment  of  Cromwell  to  the  vacant 
post  of  lieutenant-general  with  command  of  the  horse. 
The  Commons  agreed  (June  10),  and  Fairfax  for- 
mally appointed  him.  At  the  moment,  Cromwell  had 
been  sent  from  Oxford  (May  26)  into  the  eastern 
counties  to  protect  the  Isle  of  Ely.  He  was  taken 
by  legal  fiction  or  in  fact  to  have  complied  with  the 


THE    NEW    MODEL  175 

Self-denying  Ordinance  by  resigning,  and  strictly 
speaking  his  appointment  required  the  assent  of  both 
Houses.  But  the  needs  of  the  time  were  too  sharp 
for  ceremony.  The  campaign  had  now  begun  that 
almost  in  a  few  hours  was  to  end  in  the  ever-famous 
day  of  Naseby. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE    DAY    OF    NASEBY 


ARMED  Puritanism  was  now  first  to  manifest  all  its 
l\.  strength.  Faith  that  the  God  of  Battles  was  on 
their  side  nerved  its  chosen  and  winnowed  ranks  with 
stern  confidence.  The  fierce  spirit  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament glowed  like  fire  in  their  hearts.  But  neither 
these  moral  elements  of  military  force,  nor  discipline, 
technical  precision,  and  iron  endurance  would  have 
sufficed  to  win  the  triumph  at  Naseby  without  the  in- 
trepid genius  of  Oliver.  This  was  the  day  on  which 
the  great  soldier  was  first  to  show  himself  in  modern 
phrase  a  Man  of  Destiny. 

The  first  movements  of  the  campaign  of  1645, 
which  was  to  end  in  the  destruction  of  the  king's  arms, 
were  confused  and  unimportant.  The  Committee  of 
Both  Kingdoms  hardly  knew  what  to  do  with  the  new 
weapon  now  at  their  command,  and  for  many  weeks 
both  Fairfax  and  Cromwell  were  employed  in  carrying 
out  ill-conceived  orders  in  the  west.  In  May  Charles 
left  his  headquarters  at  Oxford,  with  a  design  of 
marching  through  the  midlands  northward.  On  the 
last  day  of  the  month  he  took  Leicester  by  storm.  The 
committee  at  Westminster  were  filled  with  alarm. 
Was  it  possible  that  he  intended  an  invasion  of  their 
176 


THE   DAY   OF    NASEBY  177 

stronghold  in  the  eastern  counties  ?  Fairfax,  who  lay 
before  the  walls  of  Oxford,  was  immediately  directed 
to  raise  the  siege  and  follow  the  king. 

The  modern  soldier  is  struck  all  through  the  war 
with  the  ignorance  on  both  sides  of  the  movements, 
plans,  and  position  of  the  enemy.  By  June  13th  the 
two  armies  were  in  Northamptonshire,  only  some 
seven  miles  apart,  Fairfax  at  Guilsborough,  Charles  at 
Daventry;  and  yet  it  was  not  until  the  Parliamentary 
scouts  were  within  sight  of  the  Royalist  camp  that 
the  advance  of  Fairfax  became  known.  The  Royalists 
undoubtedly  made  a  fatal  mistake  in  placing  them- 
selves in  the  way  of  Fairfax  after  they  had  let  Goring 
go ;  and  the  cause  of  their  mistake  was  the  hearty  con- 
tempt entertained  by  the  whole  of  them  from  king  to 
drummer  for  the  raw  army  and  its  clownish  recruits. 
The  cavaliers  had  amused  themselves,  we  are  told,  by 
cutting  a  wooden  image  in  the  shape  of  a  man,  and  "in 
such  a  form  as  they  blasphemously  called  it  the  god  of 
the  Roundheads,  and  this  they  carried  in  scorn  and 
contempt  of  our  army  in  a  public  manner  a  little  before 
the  battle  began."  So  confident  were  they  of  teach- 
ing the  rabble  a  lesson.  Doubting  friends  thought  as 
ill  of  the  New  Model  as  overweening  foes.  "Their 
new-modeled  army,"  says  Baillie,  like  all  the  Presby- 
terians at  this  moment,  hardly  knowing  what  he  ought 
to  wish,  "consists  for  the  most  part  of  raw,  unexperi- 
enced, pressed  soldiers.  Few  of  the  officers  are 
thought  capable  of  their  places;  many  of  them  are 
Sectaries ;  if  they  do  great  service,  many  will  be 
deceived." 

Disaster,  however,  was  not  to  be.  Cromwell,  as  we 
have  seen,  had  been  ordered  off  eastward,  to  take  mea- 
sures for  the  defense  of  the  Isle  of  Ely.  These  com- 
mands, says  a  contemporary,  "he,  in  greater  tenderness 


1-8  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

of  the  public  service  than  of  his  own  honor,  in  such  a 
time  of  extremity  disputed  not  but  fulfilled."  After 
securing  Ely.  he  applied  himself  to  active  recruiting 
in  Cambridgeshire  with  the  extraordinary  success 
that  always  followed  his  inspiring  energ}\  As  soon  as 
the  king's  movements  began  to  create  uneasiness,  Fair- 
fax, knowing  Cromwell's  value  as  commander  of  horse, 
applied  in  haste  to  the  Parliament  that  he  should  be  spe- 
cially permitted  to  serve  as  lieutenant-general.  The 
Houses  after  some  demur  gave  him  plenary  leave  ac- 
cordingly. The  general  despatched  constant  expresses 
to  Cromwell  himself,  to  inform  him  from  time  to  time 
where  the  army  was,  so  that  he  might  know  in  case  of 
danger  where  to  join  them.  When  he  found  battle  to 
be  imminent,  Oliver  hastened  over  the  county  border 
as  hard  as  he  and  six  hundred  horsemen  with  him 
could  ride.  They  rode  into  Fairfax's  quarters  at  six 
o'clock  on  the  morning  of  June  13th.  and  were  hailed 
with  the  liveliest  demonstrations  of  joy  by  the  general 
and  his  army.  "For  it  had  been  observed,"  says  an 
onlooker  of  those  days,  "that  God  was  with  him,  and 
that  affairs  were  blessed  under  his  hand."  He  was 
immediately  ordered  to  take  command  of  the  marshal- 
ing of  the  horse.  There  was  not  an  instant  to  lose, 
for  before  the  field-officers  could  even  give  a  rough 
account  of  the  arrangements  of  the  army,  the  enemy 
came  on  amain  in  excellent  order,  while  the  plan  of  the 
Parliamentar}-  commanders  was  still  an  embryo.  This 
was  the  moment  that  Cromwell  has  himself  in  glow- 
ing phrase  described:  "I  can  say  this  of  Xaseby.  that 
when  I  saw  the  enemy  draw  up  and  march  in  gallant 
order  toward  us,  and  we  a  company  of  poor  ignorant 
men.  to  seek  how  to  order  our  battle — the  general  hav- 
ing commanded  me  to  order  all  the  horse — I  could  not, 
riding  alone  about  my  business,  but  smile  out  to  God 


THE    DAY    OF    XASEBY  179 

in  praises,  in  assurance  of  victory,  because  God  would 
by  things  that  are  not  bring  to  aught  things  that 
are." 

The  number  of  men  engaged.  Hke  the  manceuvers 
that  preceded  the  battle,  is  a  matter  of  much  uncer- 
tainty. One  good  contemporary  authority  puts  the 
Parliamentary  forces  at  eleven  thousand,  and  says  that 
the  two  armies  were  about  equal.  Mr.  Gardiner,  on 
the  other  hand,  believes  the  Parliamentarians  to  have 
been  thirteen  thousand  six  hundred,  and  the  Royalists 
only  seven  thousand  five  hundred,  or  not  much  more 
than  one  to  two — a  figure  that  is  extremely  hard  to 
reconcile  with  two  admitted  facts.  One  is  that  nobody 
puts  the  number  of  Royalist  prisoners  lower  than  four 
thousand  ( and  one  contemporary  even  makes  them  six 
thousand),  while  the  slain  are  supposed  to  have  been 
not  less  than  one  thousand.  This  would  mean  the 
extinction  by  death  or  capture  of  two  thirds  of  the 
king's  total  force,  and  no  contemporary  makes  the  dis- 
aster so  murderous  as  this.  The  admission  again  that 
the  Royalist  cavalry  after  the  battle  was  practically 
intact,  increases  the  difficulty  of  accepting  so  low  an 
estimate  for  the  total  of  the  king's  troops,  for  nobody 
puts  the  Royalist  horse  under  four  thousand.  The 
better  opinion  undoubtedly  seems  to  be  that,  though 
Fairfax's  troops  outnumbered  the  king's,  yet  the  su- 
periority can  hardly  have  approached  the  proportion  of 
two  to  one. 

The  country  was  open,  and  the  only  fences  were 
mere  double  hedges  with  an  open  grass  track  between 
them,  separating  Xaseby  from  Sulby  on  the  west  and 
Clipston  on  the  east.  On  the  right  of  Fairfax's  line, 
where  Cromwell  and  his  troopers  were  posted,  the 
action  of  cavalr}^  was  much  hindered  by  rabbit  bur- 
rows, and  at  the  bottom  there  was  boggy  land  equally 


i8o  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

inconvenient  to  the  horsemen  of  the  king.  The  level 
of  the  ParHamentary  position  was  some  fifty  feet,  tliat 
of  the  Royahst  position  not  more  than  thirty,  above  the 
open  hollow  between  them.  The  slope  was  from  three 
to  four  degrees,  thus  offering  little  difficulty  of  incline 
to  either  horse  or  foot. 

If  the  preliminary  manoeuvers  cannot  be  definitely 
made  out  in  detail,  nor  carried  beyond  a  choice  of  alter- 
native hypotheses  each  as  good  as  the  other,  the  actual 
battle  is  as  plain  as  any  battle  on  rather  meager  and 
fragmentary  reports  can  be  considered  plain.  As 
usual  on  both  sides,  the  infantry  were  posted  in  the 
center,  with  the  cavalry  on  either  flank.  Fairfax 
seems  to  have  taken  up  his  ground  on  the  ledge  of  the 
hill  running  from  east  to  west.  Then  possibly  at 
Cromwell's  suggestion  he  drew  his  men  back  a  hun- 
dred paces  from  the  ledge,  so  as  to  keep  out  of  the 
enemy's  sight,  knowing  that  he  could  recover  the  ad- 
vantage when  he  pleased.  Such,  so  far  as  can  be  made 
out  from  very  entangled  evidence,  is  the  simplest  view 
of  Fairfax's  position.  Cromwell,  in  command  of  the 
horse,  was  stationed  on  the  Parliamentary  right,  and 
Ireton  on  the  left.  The  veteran  Skippon  commanded 
regiments  of  foot  in  the  center.  On  the  opposite  slope 
across  Broadmoor  Rupert  faced  Ireton,  and  Sir  Mar- 
maduke  Langdale,  with  his  northern  horse  in  the 
doubtful  humor  of  men  who  wished  to  go  homeward, 
faced  Cromwell,  while  Lord  Astley  led  the  infantry  in 
the  center.  Fairfax  directed  the  disposition  of  his 
men,  and  was  conspicuous  during  the  three  hours  of 
the  engagement  by  his  energy,  vigilance,  and  persis- 
tence. He  was  by  constitution  a  slow-footed  man,  but 
when  he  drew  near  action  in  the  field  then  another 
spirit  came  upon  him,  men  said,  and  another  soul 
looked  out  of  his  eyes.     King  Charles,  though  infe- 


From  a  print  in  the  British  Museum. 
SIR   JACOB   ASTLEY,  AFTERWARD   LORD   ASTLEV. 


THE    DAY    OF    NASEBY  i8i 

rior  in  military  capacity,  was  not  behind  him  in  either 
activity  or  courage. 

The  word** was  on  the  one  side  "Mary,"  the  king's 
favorite  name  for  the  queen;  on  the  other  side,  "God 
with  us."  The  RoyaHsts  opening  the  attack  advanced 
their  whole  line  a  hundred  yards  or  so  across  the  flat 
and  up  the  slope  toward  the  opposite  ridge.  The  Parlia- 
mentarians came  into  view  upon  the  brow  from  which 
they  had  recently  retired.  In  a  few  moments  the  foot 
in  the  center  were  locked  in  stubborn  conflict.  They 
discharged  their  pieces,  and  then  fell  to  it  with  clubbed 
muskets  and  with  swords.  The  Royalist  infantry 
pressed  Skippon  so  hard  that  his  first  line  at  last  gave 
way  and  fell  back  on  the  reserve.  Ireton,  with  his 
horse  on  the  Parliamentary  left,  launched  one  of  his 
divisions  to  help  the  foot  on  his  right,  but  with  little 
advantage  to  them  and  with  disaster  to  himself.  For 
Rupert,  dashing  through  the  smart  musketry  fire  from 
Okey's  dragoons  posted  behind  Sulby  hedges,  came 
crashing  with  irresistible  weight  upon  the  other  por- 
tion of  Ireton's  horse  on  the  western  slope  of  the  ridge, 
broke  them  up,  and  pursued  the  scattered  force  toward 
Naseby  village.  On  the  right  meanwhile  things  had 
gone  better,  for  here  Cromwell  stood.  He  had  de- 
tailed a  force  of  his  cavalry  under  Whalley  to  meet 
Langdale  in  front  with  the  Royalist  left  v/ing,  and 
he  himself  swept  round  on  to  Langdale's  left  flank 
with  the  main  body  of  his  own  horse.  Whalley  thun- 
dering down  the  slope  caught  the  left  of  the  opposing 
horse  with  terrific  impetus,  before  the  enemy  could 
charge  up  the  higher  ground.  Nothing  could  stand 
against  him.  Oliver's  charge  on  the  other  flank  com- 
pleted Langdale's  ruin,  some  of  the  enemy  dashing  in 
headlong  flight  from  the  field,  others  finding  their  way 
to  the  king's  reserve,  and  there  halting  huddled  to- 


1 82  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

gether  until  they  were  by-and-by  re-formed.  They 
were  mainly  from  Yorkshire  and  the  north,  and  had 
gone  into  battle  with  half  a  heart.  Such  was  Crom- 
well's first  onset. 

The  main  battle  was  less  victorious.  The  right  of 
the  Parliamentary  foot  stood  firm,  but  the  rest  being 
overpressed  gave  ground  and  fell  back  in  disorder. 
The  officers  made  fruitless  attempts  to  check  the  con- 
fusion of  their  inexperienced  forces,  and  were  obliged 
to  fall  into  the  reserves  with  their  colors,  "choosing 
rather  to  fight  and  die  than  to  quit  the  ground  they 
stood  on."  It  was  at  this  point  that  Cromwell  exe- 
cuted his  second  movement;  it  was  the  crisis  of  the 
battle.  With  singular  exactness  he  repeated  the  tac- 
tics that  had  won  the  memorable  day  at  Marston. 
There  as  here — Cromwell's  wing  victorious,  the  other 
wing  worsted,  the  foot  in  the  center  hard  pressed, 
Cromwell  re-forming  to  the  rescue.  Rupert,  like  Gor- 
ing's  men  at  Marston,  instead  of  leaving  a  detachment 
to  pursue  Ireton's  fugitive  horse,  and  turning  to  help 
the  king's  infantry  in  their  work  at  the  center,  lost  time 
and  a  decisive  opportunity.  Cromwell,  as  at  Marston, 
observing  the  difficulties  of  the  Parliamentary  foot, 
collected  his  whole  force,  save  one  regiment  detailed  to 
watch  or  pursue  the  flight  of  Langdale's  horsemen, 
formed  them  again  in  line,  set  a  new  front  toward  the 
left  flank  of  the  enemy's  foot,  and  flung  them  with  up- 
lifted right  arms  and  flashing  swords  to  the  relief  of 
the  hotly  pressed  infantry  of  Fairfax  and  Skippon. 
One  of  the  Royalist  brigades  ofifered  an  obstinate  re- 
sistance. "The  Parliamentarians  strove  hard  to  break 
them,  but  even  the  Ironsides  could  not  drive  them  in, 
they  standing  with  incredible  courage  and  resolution, 
though  we  attempted  them  in  flank,  front,  and  rear." 
No  impression  was  made  until  Fairfax  called  up  his 


THE    DAY    OF    NASEBY  183 

own  regiment  of  foot.  Then  the  stubborn  brigade  of 
Royalists  gave  way,  and  in  a  short  time  there  was  little 
left  in  the  whole  of  the  field  but  the  remnant  of  the 
king's  horse.  Though  some,  says  the  modern  soldier, 
may  hold  Marston  to  offer  a  greater  variety  of  striking 
pictures  and  moments  of  more  intensity  (Hoenig,  i. 
203),  there  is  scarcely  a  battle  in  history  where  cavalry 
was  better  handled  than  at  Naseby.  In  the  tactics  of 
Naseby  this  second  charge  of  the  Cromwellian  horse 
stands  out  conspicuous  for  skill  and  vigor. 

There  was  still,  however,  one  more  move  to  make 
before  victory  was  secure.  Though  aware  of  the  dis- 
aster that  was  overwhelming  him,  the  king  strove 
bravely  to  rally  the  broken  horse  of  his  left  wing.  He 
was  joined  by  Rupert,  at  last  returning  from  the  bag- 
gage-wagons and  Naseby  village,  with  his  men  and 
horses  exhausted  and  out  of  breath.  Here  the  Royal- 
ists made  their  last  stand.  It  was  in  vain.  The  Par- 
liamentary generals,  with  extraordinary  alacrity,  pre- 
pared for  a  final  charge,  and  their  preparation  was 
hardly  made  before  all  was  over  and  the  day  won. 
Ireton,  though  severely  wounded  in  the  beginning  of 
the  battle,  had  got  his  men  together  again,  and  he  took 
an  active  part  in  the  new  attack.  The  Parliamentary 
foot,  who  had  been  thrown  into  disorder  by  the  first 
charge,  and  had  then  rallied  "in  a  shorter  time 
than  imaginable,"  now  advanced  at  the  top  of  their 
speed  to  join  the  horse.  For  Oliver  had  got  his  force 
of  cavalry  once  more  in  hand,  and  made  ready  to  bear 
down  on  the  enemy  for  a  third  and  final  charge.  The 
horsemen  were  again  drawn  up  in  two  wings  within 
carbine-shot  of  the  enemy,  "leaving  a  wide  space  be- 
tween the  wings  for  the  battle  of  the  foot  to  fall  in. 
Thereby,"  says  the  eye-witness,  "there  was  framed,  as 
it  were  in  a  trice,  a  second  good  battalia  at  the  latter 


1 84  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

end  of  the  day,  which  the  enemy  perceiving,  and  that 
if  they  stood  they  must  expect  a  second  charge  from  our 
horse,  foot,  and  artillery  (they  having  lost  all  their 
foot  and  guns  before),  and  our  dragoons  having 
already  begun  to  fire  upon  their  horse,  they  not  willing 
to  abide  a  second  shock  upon  so  great  disadvantage  as 
there  was  like  to  be,  immediately  ran  away,  both  fronts 
and  reserves,  without  standing  one  stroke  more."  To 
the  king,  gallantly  heading  his  line,  a  curious  and  char- 
acteristic thing  happened.  Lord  Carnwath  riding  by 
his  side  suddenly  laid  his  hand  upon  the  king's  bridle, 
and  swearing  sundry  Scotch  oaths,  cried  out,  "Will 
you  go  upon  your  death  in  an  instant?"  "Then,"  says 
Clarendon,  "before  the  king  understood  wdiat  he  would 
have,  he  turned  his  horse  round,  and  upon  that  they 
all  turned  their  horses  and  rode  upon  the  spur,  as  if 
they  were  every  man  to  shift  for  himself." 

The  fight,  which  was  desperately  maintained  at 
every  point  throughout  the  day,  with  its  issue  often 
doubtful,  lasted  three  hours.  The  killed  and  wounded 
were  about  five  thousand.  The  Irish  camp-followers 
were  slaughtered  in  cold  blood.  All  the  king's  guns, 
all  his  wagons  and  carriages,  his  colors  and  standards 
were  taken,  and,  worst  of  all,  his  private  cabinet,  con- 
taining his  most  secret  correspondence  and  papers. 
This  did  him  an  injury  almost  as  deep  as  the  loss  of  a 
battle,  for  the  letters  disclosed  his  truthlessness,  and 
the  impossibility  of  ever  trusting  him.  A  weird  and 
vivid  picture  of  the  latest  scenes  of  Naseby  survives  in 
the  story  of  Lady  Herbert.  She  went  with  a  retainer 
to  seek  the  body  of  her  husband.  It  was  a  chill  and 
boisterous  night.  They  met  stragglers  laden  with 
spoil ;  and  here  and  there  lay  a  miserable  wounded  man 
imploring  help  which  they  could  not  give.  The  living 
array  and  throng  of  war  had  passed,  and  nothing  re- 


From  the  original  portrait  by  Van  Dyck  at  Hinchinbrook, 
by  permission  of  the  Eatl  of  Sandwich. 


PRINCE   RUPERT. 


THE    DAY    OF    NASEBY  185 

mained  but  the  still  and  motionless  heaps  of  dead  and 
dying.  The  moon  sometimes  gave  a  prospect  over  the 
encumbered  field.  Here  the  slain  were  piled  closely 
together,  there  they  had  fallen  dispersed  in  broken 
flight.  Mangled  limbs  were  scattered  about,  mixed 
with  the  carcases  of  horses,  gun-carriages,  and  broken 
tumbrils.  Elsewhere  were  small  arms  and  fragments 
of  feathers  and  clothing.  The  spoilers  of  the  dead 
had  now  newly  done  their  work ;  but  one  or  two  strag- 
gling women  still  moved  up  and  down  like  specters 
among  the  heaps  of  slaughter. 

She  made  up  to  one  of  the  women,  and  asked  if  she 
could  tell  where  the  King's  Guards  had  fought.  *'Ay, 
gossip.  Be'st  thou  come  a-rifling  too?  But  i'faith 
thou'rt  of  the  latest.  The  swashing  gallants  were  as 
fine  as  peacocks ;  but  we've  stript  their  bravery,  I  trow. 
Yonder  stood  the  King's  tent,  and  yonder  about  do 
most  of  them  lie;  but  thou'lt  scarce  find  a  lading  for 
thy  cattle  now."  She  went  by  this  direction  toward 
a  rising  ground,  where  the  fragments  of  the  royal  tent 
were  still  to  be  seen.  The  dead  here  lay  wedged  in  close 
heaps,  indicating  that  the  conflict  had  been  long  and 
desperate.  The  combatants  had  often  fallen  in  mor- 
tal struggle,  grasped  together  in  the  very  attitude  in 
which  they  had  given  the  death  wounds.  Such  is  hate- 
ful war. 

Toward  the  end  of  May,  Digby  writes  in  one  of 
his  letters,  "Ere  one  month  be  over,  we  shall  have 
a  battle  of  all  for  all."  The  prediction  came  true. 
If  the  battle  had  gone  the  other  way  Goring  and  the 
king  would  have  marched  up  to  London,  heartening 
their  men  with  the  promise  of  the  spoil  of  the  richest 
city  in  the  realm,  and  the  presence  of  the  king  and 
his  army  in  the  metropolis  might  have  created  a  situ- 
Even    now    the 


1 86  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

king  had  not  lost  his  crown.  Time  had  still  golden 
opportunities  to  offer  him.  Yet  Naseby  was  one  of 
the  decisive  battles  of  English  history.  It  destroyed 
the  last  organized  force  that  Charles  was  able  to 
raise;  it  demonstrated  that  the  New  Model  had  pro- 
duced an  invincible  army;  it  transformed  the  nature 
of  the  struggle,  and  the  conditions  of  the  case;  it 
released  new  interests  and  new  passions ;  it  changed 
the  balance  of  parties;  and  it  brought  Cromwell  into 
decisive  preeminence  in  all  men's  minds. 


II 


Cromwell's  own  account  of  Naseby  is  the  tersest 
bulletin  on  record,  but  he  takes  care  to  draw  a  political 
moral  for  the  hot  party  struggle  then  going  on  at 
Westminster.  "Honest  men,"  he  writes  to  the 
Speaker,  "served  you  faithfully  in  this  action.  Sir, 
they  are  trusty;  I  beseech  you,  in  the  name  of  God, 
not  to  discourage  them.  I  wish  their  actions  may 
beget  thankfulness  and  humility  in  all  that  are  con- 
cerned in  it.  He  that  ventures  his  life  for  the  liberty 
of  his  country,  I  wish  he  trust  God  for  the  liberty  of 
his  conscience,  and  you  for  the  liberty  he  fights  for." 
In  plainer  words,  the  House  of  Commons  should  not 
forget  how  much  the  Independents  had  to  do  with 
the  victory,  and  that  what  the  Independents  fought 
for  was  above  all  else  liberty  of  conscience. 

For  the  king  the  darkness  was  lightened  by  a 
treacherous  ray  of  hope  from  Scotland.  The  Scots, 
w'hose  aid  had  been  of  such  decisive  value  to  the  Par- 
liament at  the  end  of  1643,  on  the  stricken  field  at 
Marston  in  the  summer  of  1644,  and  in  the  seizure 
of  Newcastle  three  months  later,  had  been  since  of 


THE    DAY    OF    NASEBY  187 

little  use.  At  Naseby  they  had  no  part  nor  lot,  and 
they  even  looked  on  that  memorable  day  with  a  surly 
eye;  although  it  had  indeed  broken  the  malignants, 
it  had  mightily  exalted  the  Independents.  A  force  of 
Scots  still  remained  on  English  ground,  but  they  were 
speedily  wanted  in  their  own  country.  One  of  the 
fiercest  of  the  lesser  episodes  of  the  war  happened  in 
Scotland,  where  in  the  northern  Highlands  and  else- 
where the  same  feeling  for  the  national  line  of  their 
princes  came  into  life  among  chieftains  and  clans- 
men that  survived  with  so  many  romantic  circum- 
stances and  rash  adventures  down  to  the  rebellion 
of  1745. 

In  August,  1644,  Montrose,  disguised  as  a  groom 
and  accompanied  by  two  of  his  friends,  rode  across 
the  southwestern  border  from  Carlisle  and  made  his 
way  to  Athole.  There  he  was  joined  by  a  mixed  con- 
tingent of  Highlanders  and  twelve  hundred  Irish, 
lately  brought  over  under  Highland  leadership  into 
Argyllshire.  This  was  the  beginning  of  a  flame  of 
royalism  that  blazed  high  for  a  year,  was  marked  by 
much  savagery  and  destruction,  left  three  or  four  new 
names  upon  the  historic  scroll  of  the  bloody  scuffles 
between  Campbells,  Forbeses,  Frasers,  Macleans,  Mac- 
donalds,  Gordons,  Ogilvies,  Grahams,  and  the  rest, 
and  then  finally  died  down  at  the  battle  of  Philip- 
haugh.  Montrose  reached  the  top  of  his  success  at 
the  engagement  of  Kilsyth,  just  two  months  after 
Naseby.  In  another  month  the  rushing  meteor  went 
out.  David  Leslie,  who  fought  at  Cromwell's  side 
at  Marston  Moor  and  was  now  on  duty  in  England, 
took  his  force  up  to  the  border,  crossed  the  Tweed, 
found  Montrose  and  his  ragged  and  scanty  force  of 
clansmen  encamped  at  Philiphaugh,  near  Selkirk 
(September  13,   1645),  ^^^^  there  fell  suddenly  upon 


1 88  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

them,  shattering  into  empty  air  both  Montrose's  fan- 
tasies and  the  shadowy  hopes  of  the  dreaming  king. 

Charles's  resohition  was  still  unshaken.  As  he  told 
Digby,  if  he  could  not  live  like  a  king,  he  would  die 
like  a  gentleman.  Six  weeks  after  the  fatal  battle 
he  writes  to  Prince  Rupert:  "I  confess  that,  speaking 
either  as  a  mere  soldier  or  statesman.  I  must  say  that 
there  is  no  probability  but  of  my  ruin.  But  as  a 
Christian  I  must  tell  you  that  God  will  not  suffer 
rebels  and  traitors  to  prosper,  or  this  cause  to  be  over- 
thrown. And  whatever  personal  punishment  it  shall 
please  him  to  inflict  upon  me  must  not  make  me  repine, 
much  less  to  give  over  this  quarrel.  Indeed,  I  can- 
not flatter  myself  with  expectations  of  good  success 
more  than  this,  to  end  my  days  with  honor  and  a  good 
conscience,  which  obliges  me  to  continue  my  endeav- 
ors, as  not  despairing  that  God  may  in  due  time 
avenge  his  own  cause.  Though  I  must  avow  to  all 
my  friends  that  he  that  will  stay  with  me  at  this  time 
must  expect  and  resolve  either  to  die  for  a  good  cause, 
or  (which  is  worse)  to  live  as  miserable  in  maintain- 
ing it  as  the  violence  of  insulting  rebels  can  make  it." 

This  patient  stoicism,  which  may  attract  us  when 
we  read  about  it  in  a  book,  was  little  to  the  mind  of 
the  shrewd  soldier  to  whom  the  king's  firm  words  were 
written.  Rupert  knew  that  the  cause  was  lost,  and 
counseled  an  attempt  to  come  to  terms.  A  disaster 
only  second  to  Naseby  and  still  more  unforeseen  soon 
followed.  After  a  series  of  victorious  operations  in 
the  west,  at  Langport,  Bridgewater,  Bath,  Sherborne, 
Fairfax  and  Cromwell  laid  siege  to  Bristol,  and  after 
a  fierce  and  daring  storm  (September  loth)  Rupert, 
who  had  promised  the  king  that  he  could  hold  out 
for  four  good  months,  suddenly  capitulated  and  rode 
away  to  Oxford  under  the  humiliating  protection  of 


Drawn  by  George  T.  Tobin  after  a  print  in  the  British  Museum  of  the  portrait  by  Peter  OHv 
JOHN    PAWLET,  MARQUIS    OF    WINCHESTER. 


THE   DAY   OF   NASEBY  189 

a  Parliamentary  convoy.  The  fall  of  this  famous 
stronghold  of  the  west  was  the  severest  of  all  the 
king's  mortifications,  as  the  failure  of  Rupert's  wonted 
courage  was  the  strangest  of  military  surprises.  That 
Rupert  was  too  clear-sighted  not  to  be  thoroughly 
discouraged  by  the  desperate  aspect  of  the  king's 
affairs  is  certain,  and  the  military  difficulties  of  sus- 
taining a  long  siege  were  thought,  even  by  those  who 
had  no  reasons  to  be  tender  of  his  fame,  to  justify 
the  surrender.  The  king  would  listen  to  no  excuses, 
but  wrote  Rupert  an  angry  letter,  declaring  so  mean 
an  action  to  be  the  greatest  trial  of  his  constancy  that 
had  yet  happened,  depriving  him  of  his  commissions, 
and  bidding  him  begone  beyond  the  seas.  Rupert 
nevertheless  insisted  on  following  the  king  to  Newark, 
and  after  some  debate  was  declared  to  be  free  of  all 
disloyalty  or  treason,  but  not  of  indiscretion.  An- 
other quarrel  arose  between  the  king  and  his  nephews 
and  their  partizans.  The  feuds  and  rivalries  of  Par- 
.liament,  at  their  worst,  were  always  matched  by  the 
more  ignoble  distractions  and  jealousies  of  the  court. 
Suspicions  even  grew  up  that  Rupert  and  Maurice 
were  in  a  plot  for  the  transfer  of  the  crown  to  their 
elder  brother,  the  Elector  Palatine.  That  the  Elec- 
tor had  been  encouraged  in  such  aspirations  by  earlier 
incidents  was  true. 

Cromwell  improved  the  fall  of  Bristol  as  he  had 
improved  Naseby.  "Faith  and  prayer,"  he  tells  the 
Speaker,  "obtained  this  city  for  you.  It  is  meet  that 
God  have  all  the  praise.  Presbyterians,  Independents, 
and  all  here  have  the  same  spirit  of  faith  and  prayer, 
the  same  presence  and  answer;  they  agree  here,  have 
no  names  of  difference;  pity  it  is  it  should  be  other- 
wise anywhere."  So  he  urges  to  the  end  of  his  de- 
spatch.    Toleration  is  the  only  key-word.     "All  that 


I  go  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

believe  have  the  real  unity,  which  is  most  glorious 
because  inward  and  spiritual.  As  for  unity  in  forms, 
commonly  called  uniformity,  every  Christian  will 
study  that.  But  in  things  of  the  mind  we  look  for 
no  compulsion  but  that  of  light  and  reason.  In  other 
things  God  hath  put  the  sword  in  the  hands  of  the 
Parliament  for  the  terror  of  evildoers  and  the  praise 
of  them  that  do  well."  These  high  refrains  were  not 
at  all  to  the  taste  of  the  Presbyterian  majority,  and 
on  at  least  one  occasion  they  were  for  public  purposes 
suppressed. 

After  Bristol  Winchester  fell.  Then  Cromwell  sat 
down  before  Basing  House,  which  had  plagued  and 
defied  the  generals  of  the  Parliament  for  many  long 
months  since  1643.  Its  valorous  defender  was  Lord 
Winchester,  a  Catholic,  a  brave,  pious,  and  devoted 
servant  of  the  royal  cause,  indirectly  known  to  the 
student  of  English  poetry  as  husband  of  the  young 
lady  on  whose  death,  fourteen  years  earlier,  Milton 
and  Ben  Jonson  had  written  verses  of  elegiac  grief. 
"Cromwell  spent  much  time  with  God  in  prayer  the 
night  before  the  storm  of  Basing.  He  seldom  fights 
without  some  text  of  scripture  to  support  him."  This 
time  he  rested  on  the  eighth  verse  of  the  One  Hun- 
dred and  Fifteenth  Psalm:  "They  that  make  them 
[idols]  are  like  unto  them;  so  is  every  one  that  trust- 
eth  in  them," — with  private  application  to  the  theolo- 
gies of  the  popish  Lord  Winchester.  "We  stormed 
this  morning,"  Oliver  reports  (October  14,  1645), 
"after  six  of  the  clock;  the  signal  for  falling  on  was 
the  firing  four  of  our  cannon,  which  being  done,  our 
men  fell  on  with  great  resolution  and  cheerfulness." 
Many  of  the  enemy  were  put  to  the  sword ;  all  the 
sumptuous  things  abounding  in  the  proud  house  were 
plundered;  "popish  books,  with  copes  and  such  uten- 


THE    DAY    OF    NASEBY  191 

sils,"  were  flung  into  the  purifying  flame,  and  before 
long  fire  and  destruction  had  left  only  blackened  ruins. 
Among  the  prisoners  was  Winchester  himself.  In 
those  days  the  word  in  season  was  held  to  be  an  urgent 
duty.  Hugh  Peters  thought  the  moment  happy  for 
proving  to  his  captive  the  error  of  his  idolatrous  ways, 
just  as  Cheynell  hastened  the  end  of  Chillingworth 
by  thrusting  controversy  upon  his  last  hour,  and  as 
Clotworthy  teased  the  unfortunate  Laud  at  the  in- 
stant when  he  was  laying  his  head  upon  the  block 
with  questions  upon  what  his  assurance  of  salvation 
was  founded.  The  stout-hearted  cavalier  of  Basing, 
after  long  endurance  of  his  pulpit  tormentors,  at  last 
broke  out  and  said  that  "if  the  king  had  no  more 
ground  in  England  than  Basing  House,  he  would  still 
adventure  as  he  had  done,  and  so  maintain  it  to  the 
uttermost." 

After  Basing  the  king  had  indeed  not  very  much 
more  ground  in  England  or  anywhere  else.  This  was 
the  twentieth  garrison  that  had  been  taken  that  sum- 
mer. Fairfax,  who  had  parted  from  Cromwell  for  a 
time  after  the  fall  of  Bristol,  pushed  on  into  Devon 
and  Cornwall,  and  by  a  series  of  rapid  and  vigorous 
operations  cleared  the  Royalist  forces  out  of  the  west. 
He  defeated  Hopton,  that  good  soldier  and  honorable 
man,  first  at  Torrington  and  then  at  Truro,  and  his 
last  achievement  was  the  capture  of  Exeter  (April  9, 
1646).  Cromwell,  who  had  joined  him  shortly  after 
the  fall  of  Basing  House,  was  with  the  army  through- 
out these  operations,  watching  the  state  of  affairs  at 
Westminster  from  a  distance,  in  a  frame  of  mind 
shown  by  the  exhortations  in  his  despatches,  and  con- 
stant to  his  steadfast  rule  of  attending  with  close 
diligence  to  the  actual  duties  of  the  day,  leaving  other 
things  to  come  after  in  their  place.     After  the  fall  of 


192  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

Exeter,  he  was  despatched  hy  Fairfax  to  report  their 
doings  to  the  ParHament.  He  received  the  formal 
thanks  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  a  more  soHd 
recognition  of  his  fideHty  and  service  in  the  shape  of 
estates  of  the  value  of  two  thousand  five  hundred 
pounds  a  year.  Then  Cromwell  went  back  to  Fair- 
fax and  the  investment  of  Oxford. 


BOOK  THREE 


Bool?  Ebree 

CHAPTER    I 

THE    KING    A    PRISONER 

ONE  Sunday  at  midnight  (April  26,  1646)  the 
king  at  C3xford  came  secretly  to  an  appointed 
room  in  one  of  the  colleges,  had  his  hair  and  beard  cut 
short,  was  dressed  in  the  disguise  of  a  servant,  and 
at  three  in  the  morning,  with  a  couple  of  companions, 
crossed  over  Magdalen  Bridge  and  passed  out  of  the 
gate,  leaving  behind  him  forever  the  gray  walls  and 
venerable  towers,  the  churches  and  libraries,  the  clois- 
ters and  gardens,  of  the  ever-faithful  city.  He  had 
not  even  made  up  his  mind  whither  to  go,  whether 
to  London  or  to  the  Scots.  Riding  through  Maiden- 
head and  Slough,  the  party  reached  Uxbridge  and 
Hillingdon,  and  there  at  last  after  long  and  perplexed 
debate  he  resolved  to  set  his  face  northward,  but  with 
no  clear  or  settled  design.  For  eight  days  men  won- 
dered whether  the  fugitive  king  lay  hidden  in  London 
or  had  gone  to  Ireland.  Charles  was  afraid  of  Lon- 
don, and  he  hoped  that  the  French  envoy  would 
assure  him  that  the  Scots  were  willing  to  grant  him 
honorable  conditions.  Short  of  this,  he  was  inclined 
rather  to  cast  himself  upon  the  English  than  to  trust 
his  countrymen.  His  choice  was  probably  the  wrong 
one.  If  he  had  gone  to  London  he  would  have  had 
a  better  chance  than  ever  came  to  him  again,  of  wid- 
ening the  party  divisions  in  the  House  of  Commons, 

195 


196  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

and  he  would  have  shown  the  Enghsh  that  he  had 
that  confidence  in  their  loyalty  which  at  this,  as  al- 
most at  every  other  stage,  the  general  body  of  them 
were  little  likely  to  disappoint  or  to  betray.  After  all 
it  mattered  less  where  Charles  was  than  what  he  was. 
If,  in  the  language  of  the  time,  God  had  hardened 
him,  if  he  was  bent  on  "tinkling  on  bishops  and  delin- 
quents and  such  foolish  toys,"  he  might  as  well  try 
his  shallow  arts  in  one  place  as  another.  Do  what 
he  would,  grim  men  and  grim  facts  had  now  fast  hold 
upon  him.  He  found  his  way  to  Harrow,  thence  to 
St.  Albans,  and  thence  to  Downham.  There  the  dis- 
guised king  stayed  at  a  tavern  until  word  came  from 
Montereul — not  very  substantial,  as  it  proved — that 
the  Scots  would  give  the  assurances  that  he  desired. 
Ten  days  after  leaving  Oxford  Charles  rode  into  the 
Scottish  quarters  at  Southwell.  He  was  never  a  free 
man  again.  Before  the  end  of  June  Oxford  surren- 
dered. The  generals  were  blamed  for  the  liberality 
of  the  terms  of  capitulation,  but  Cromwell  insisted  on 
their  faithful  observance,  for  he  knew  that  the  war 
was  now  at  an  end,  and  that  in  civil  strife  clemency 
must  be  the  true  policy. 

With  the  close  of  the  war  and  the  surrender  of  the 
person  of  the  king  a  new  crisis  began,  not  less  decisive 
than  that  which  ended  in  the  raising  of  the  royal  stan- 
dard four  years  before,  but  rapidly  opening  more  ex- 
tensive ground  of  conflict  and  awakening  more  for- 
midable elements.  Since  then  Europe  has  learned,  or 
has  not  learned,  the  lesson  that  revolutions  are  apt  to 
follow  a  regular  order.  It  would  be  a  complete  mis- 
take, however,  to  think  that  England  in  1647  was  at 
all  like  France  after  the  return  of  Bonaparte  from  his 
victorious  campaigns  in  Italy.  They  were  unlike,  be- 
cause Cromwell  was  not  a  bandit,  and  the  army  of 


Fiom  the  portrait  by  C  Janssen  in  the  Nauonal  Portrait  Gallery 
SIR   EDWARD   COKE. 


THE    KING    A    PRISONER  197 

the  New  Model  was  not  a  standing  force  of  many 
tens  of  thousands  of  men,  essentially  conscienceless 
and  only  existing  for  war  and  conquest.  The  task 
was  different.  No  situations  in  history  really  repro- 
duce themselves.  In  France  the  fabric  of  government 
had  been  violently  dashed  to  pieces  from  foundation 
to  crest.  Those  ideas  in  men's  minds  by  which  na- 
tional institutions  are  molded,  and  from  which  they 
mainly  draw  their  life,  had  become  faded  and  power- 
less. The  nation  had  no  reverence  for  the  throne,  and 
no  affection  either  for  the  king  while  he  was  alive, 
or  for  his  memory  after  they  had  killed  him.  Not  a 
single  institution  stood  sacred.  In  England,  in  1647, 
no  such  terrible  catastrophe  had  happened.  A  con- 
fused storm  had  swept  over  the  waters,  many  a  brave 
man  had  been  carried  overboard,  but  the  ship  of  state 
seemed  to  have  ridden  out  the  hurricane.  The  king 
had  been  beaten,  but  the  nation  never  dreamed  of  any- 
thing but  monarchy.  The  bishops  had  gone  down, 
but  the  nation  desired  a  national  church.  The  lords 
had  dwindled  to  a  dubious  shadow,  but  the  nation 
cherished  its  unalterable  reverence  for  Parliament. 

The  highest  numbers  in  a  division,  even  in  the 
early  days  of  the  Long  Parliament,  do  not  seem  to 
have  gone  above  three  hundred  and  eighty  out  of  a 
total  of  near  five  hundred.  After  the  war  broke  out 
they  naturally  sank  to  a  far  lower  figure.  At  least 
a  hundred  members  were  absent  in  the  discharge  of 
local  duties.  A  hundred  more  took  the  side  of  the 
king,  and  shook  the  dust  of  Westminster  from  off 
their  feet.  On  the  first  Self-denying  Ordinance  one 
hundred  and  ninety  members  voted.  The  appoint- 
ment of  Fairfax  to  be  commander-in-chief  was  carried 
by  one  hundred  and  one  against  sixty-nine.  The  ordi- 
nary working  strength  was  not  above  a  hundred.     The 


198  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

weakness  of  moral  authority  in  a  house  in  this  condi- 
tion was  painfully  evident,  but  so  too  were  the  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  any  remedy.  A  general  disso- 
lution, as  if  the  country  were  in  deep  tranquillity 
instead  of  being  torn  and  wearied  by  civil  convulsion, 
was  out  of  the  question.  Apart  from  the  technical 
objection  of  calling  a  new  Parliament  without  tlje 
king  and  the  king's  great  seal,  the  risk  of  throwing 
upon  doubtful  constituencies  all  the  vital  issues  then 
open  and  unsettled,  was  too  formidable  for  any  states- 
man in  his  senses  to  provoke. 

The  House  proceeded  gradually,  and  after  Naseby 
issued  writs  in  small  batches.  Before  the  end  of 
1646  about  two  hundred  and  thirty-five  new  members 
had  been  returned,  and  of  these  the  majority  either 
professed  independency  or  leaned  toward  it,  or  at 
least  were  averse  to  Presbyterian  exclusiveness,  and 
not  a  few  were  officers  in  the  army.  Thus  in  all 
revolutions,  as  they  move  forward,  stratum  is  super- 
imposed above  stratum.  Coke,  Selden,  Eliot,  Hampden, 
Pym,  the  first  generation  of  constitutional  reformers, 
were  now  succeeded  by  a  new  generation  of  various 
revolutionary  shades — Ireton,  Ludlow,  Hutchinson, 
Algernon  Sidney,  Fleetwood,  and  Blake.  Cromwell, 
from  his  success  as  commander,  his  proved  experience, 
and  his  stern  adherence  to  the  great  dividing  doctrine 
of  toleration,  was  the  natural  leader  of  this  new  and 
powerful  group.  Sidney's  stoical  death  years  after 
on  Tower  Hill,  and  Blake's  destruction  of  the  Spanish 
silver-galleons  in  the  bay  of  Santa  Cruz,  the  most 
splendid  naval  achievement  of  that  age,  have  made  a 
deeper  mark  on  historic  imagination,  but  for  the  pur- 
poses of  the  hour  it  was  Ireton  who  had  the  more  im- 
portant part  to  play.  Ireton,  now  five-and-thirty,  was 
the  son  of  a  country  gentleman  in  Nottinghamshire, 


THE    KING    A    PRISONER  199 

had  been  bred  at  Oxford,  and  read  law  in  the  Temple. 
He  had  fought  at  Edgehill,  had  ridden  by  Cromwell's 
side  at  Gainsborough  and  Marston  Moor,  and,  as  we 
have  seen,  was  in  command  of  the  horse  on  the  left 
wing  at  Naseby,  where  his  fortune  was  not  good. 
No  better  brain  was  then  at  work  on  either  side,  no 
purer  character.  Some  found  that  he  had  "the  prin- 
ciples and  the  temper  of  a  Cassius  in  him,"  for  no 
better  reason  than  that  he  was  firm,  never  shrinking 
from  the  shadow  of  his  convictions,  active,  discreet, 
and  with  a  singular  power  of  drawing  others,  includ- 
ing first  of  all  Cromwell  himself,  over  to  his  own 
judgment.  He  had  that  directness,  definiteness,  and 
persistency  to  which  the  Pliables  of  the  world  often 
misapply  the  ill-favored  name  of  fanaticism.  He  was 
a  man,  says  one,  regardless  of  his  own  or  any  one's 
private  interest  wherever  he  thought  the  public  service 
might  be  advantaged.  He  was  very  active,  indus- 
trious, and  stiff  in  his  ways  and  purposes,  says  an- 
other; stout  in  the  field,  and  wary  and  prudent  in 
counsel ;  exceedingly  forward  as  to  the  business  of  the 
Commonwealth.  "Cromwell  had  a  great  opinion  of 
him,  and  no  man  could  prevail  so  much,  nor  order 
him  so  far,  as  Ireton  could."  He  was  so  diligent  in  the 
public  service,  and  so  careless  of  all  belonging  to  him- 
self, that  he  never  regarded  what  food  he  ate,  what 
clothes  he  wore,  what  horse  he  mounted,  or  at  what 
hour  he  went  to  rest.  Cromwell  good-naturedly  im- 
plies in  Ireton  almost  excessive  fluency  with  his  pen; 
he  does  not  write  to  him,  he  says,  because  "one  line 
of  mine  begets  many  of  his."  The  framing  of  con- 
stitutions is  a  pursuit  that  has  fallen  into  just  dis- 
credit in  later  days,  but  the  power  of  intellectual  con- 
centration and  the  constructive  faculty  displayed  in 
Ireton's  plans  of  constitutional  revision,  mark  him  as 


200  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

a  man  of  the  first  order  in  that  line.  He  was  enough 
of  a  lawyer  to  comprehend  with  precision  the  prin- 
ciples and  forms  of  government,  but  not  too  much 
of  a  lawyer  to  prize  and  practise  new  invention  and 
resource.  If  a  fresh  constitution  could  have  been 
made,  Ireton  was  the  man  to  make  it.  Not  less  re- 
markable than  his  grasp  and  capacity  of  mind  was 
his  disinterestedness.  When  he  was  serving  in  Ire- 
land, Parliament  ordered  a  settlement  of  two  thou- 
sand pounds  a  year  to  be  made  upon  him.  The  news 
was  so  unacceptable  to  him  that  when  he  heard  of  it 
he  said  that  they  had  many  just  debts  they  had  better 
pay  before  making  any  such  presents,  and  that  for 
himself  he  had  no  need  of  their  land  and  would  have 
none  of  it.  It  was  to  this  comrade  in  arms  and  coun- 
sel that  Cromwell,  a  year  after  Naseby  (1646),  gave 
in  marriage  his  daughter  Bridget,  then  a  girl  of  two- 
and-twenty. 

The  king's  surrender  to  the  Scots  created  new  en- 
tanglements. The  episode  lasted  from  May,  1646,  to 
January,  1647.  It  made  worse  the  bad  feeling  that 
had  for  long  been  growing  between  the  English  and 
the  Scots.  The  religious  or  political  quarrel  about 
uniform  presbytery,  charges  of  military  uselessness, 
disputes  about  money,  disputes  about  the  border 
strongholds,  all  worked  with  the  standing  interna- 
tional jealousy  to  produce  a  tension  that  had  long  been 
dangerous,  and  in  another  year  in  the  play  of  Scottish 
factions  against  one  another  was  to  become  more  dan- 
gerous still. 

Terms  of  a  settlement  had  been  propounded  to  the 
king  in  the  Nineteen  Propositions  of  York,  on  the 
eve  of  the  war  in  1642;  in  the  treaty  of  Oxford  at 
the  beginning  of  1643;  i"  the  treaty  of  Uxbridge  in 
1644-45,  the  failure  of  which  led  to  the  New  Model 


at  \Vlnd^.ir  Castle. 
Majesty  the  Queen. 

5RIDGET    CROMWELL 
(MRS.  IRETON,  AND   LATER  MRS.  FLEETWOOD). 


THE    KING    A    PRISONER  201 

and  to  Naseby.  By  the  Nineteen  Propositions  now 
made  to  him  at  Newcastle  the  king  was  to  swear  to 
the  Covenant,  and  to  make  all  his  subjects  do  the 
same.  Archbishops,  bishops,  and  all  other  dignitaries 
were  to  be  utterly  abolished  and  taken  away.  The 
children  of  papists  were  to  be  educated  by  Protestants 
in  the  Protestant  faith;  and  mass  was  not  to  be  said 
either  at  court  or  anywhere  else.  Parliament  was  to 
control  all  the  military  forces  of  the  kingdom  for 
twenty  years,  and  to  raise  money  for  them  as  it  might 
think  fit.  An  immense  list  of  the  king's  bravest 
friends  was  to  be  proscribed.  Little  wonder  is  it  that 
these  proposals,  some  of  them  even  now  so  odious, 
some  so  intolerable,  seemed  to  Charles  to  strike  the 
crown  from  his  head  as  effectually  as  if  it  were  the 
stroke  of  the  ax. 

Charles  himself  never  cherished  a  more  foolish 
dream  than  this  of  his  Scottish  custodians,  that  he 
would  turn  Covenanter.  Scottish  Covenanters  and 
English  Puritans  found  themselves  confronted  by  a 
conscience  as  rigid  as  their  own.  Before  the  summer 
was  over,  the  king's  madness,  as  it  seemed  to  them, 
had  confounded  all  his  Presbyterian  friends.  They 
were  in  no  frame  of  mind  to  apprehend  even  dimly 
the  king's  views  of  the  divine  right  of  bishops  as  the 
very  foundation  of  the  Anglican  Church,  and  the  one 
sacred  link  with  the  church  universal.  Yet  they  were 
themselves  just  as  tenacious  of  the  divine  right  of 
presbytery.  Their  Independent  enemies  looked  on 
with  a  stern  satisfaction  that  was  slowly  beginning  to 
take  a  darker  and  more  revengeful  cast. 

In  spite  of  his  asseverations,  nobody  believed  that 
the  king  "stuck  upon  Episcopacy  for  any  conscience." 
Here,  as  time  was  to  show,  the  world  did  Charles 
much  less  than  justice;  but  he  did  not  conceal  from 


202  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

the  queen  and  others  who  urged  him  to  swallow  Pres- 
bytery, that  he  had  a  political  no  less  than  a  religious 
objection  to  it.  "The  nature  of  Presbyterian  govern- 
ment is  to  steal  or  force  the  crown  from  the  king's 
head,  for  their  chief  maxim  is  (and  I  know  it  to  be 
true)  that  all  kings  must  submit  to  Christ's  kingdom, 
of  which  they  are  the  sole  governors,  the  king  having 
but  a  single  and  no  negative  voice  in  their  assemblies." 
When  Charles  said  he  knew  this  to  be  true,  he  was 
thinking  of  all  the  bitter  hours  that  his  father  had 
passed  in  conflict  with  the  clergy.  He  had  perhaps 
heard  of  the  scene  between  James  VI  and  Andrew 
Melville  in  1596;  how  the  preacher  bore  him  down, 
calling  the  king  God's  silly  vassal,  and  taking  him  by 
the  sleeve,  told  him  that  there  are  two  kings  and 
two  kingdoms  in  Scotland :  there  is  Christ  Jesus  the 
King,  and  his  kingdom  the  kirk,  whose  subject  King 
James  VI  is,  and  of  whose  kingdom  not  a  king,  not 
a  lord,  not  a  head,  but  a  member.  "And  they  whom 
Christ  has  called  and  commanded  to  watch  over  his 
kirk  and  govern  his  spiritual  kingdom,  have  sufficient 
power  of  him  and  authority  so  to  do,  the  which  no 
Christian,  king  nor  prince,  should  control  and  dis- 
charge, but  fortify  and  assist." 

The  sincerity  of  his  devotion  to  the  church  did  not 
make  Charles  a  plain-dealer.  He  agreed  to  what  was 
proposed  to  him  about  Ireland,  supposing,  as  he  told 
Bellievre,  the  French  ambassador,  that  the  ambiguous 
expression  found  in  the  terms  in  which  it  was  drawn 
up,  would  give  him  the  means  by-and-by  of  interpret- 
ing it  to  his  advantage.  Charles,  in  one  of  his  letters 
to  the  queen,  lets  us  see  what  he  means  by  an  am- 
biguous expression.  'Tt  is  true,"  he  tells  her,  "that  it 
may  be  I  give  them  leave  to  hope  for  more  than  I 
intended,  but  my  words  are  only  'to  endeavor  to  give 


THE    KING    A    PRISONER  203 

them  satisfaction.'  "  Then  he  is  anxious  to  explain 
that  though  it  is  true  that  as  to  places  he  gives  them 
some  more  hkely  hopes,  "yet  neither  in  that  is  there 
any  absolute  engagement,  but  there  is  the  condition 
'of  giving  me  encouragement  thereunto  by  their 
ready  inclination  to  peace'  annexed  with  it." 

It  is  little  wonder  that  just  as  Royalists  took  dis- 
simulation to  be  the  key  to  Cromwell,  so  it  has  been 
counted  the  master  vice  of  Charles.  Yet  Charles  was 
not  the  only  dissembler.  At  this  moment  the  Scots 
themselves  boldly  declared  that  all  charges  about  their 
dealing  with  Mazarin  and  the  queen  were  wholly  false, 
when  in  fact  they  were  perfectly  true.  In  later  days 
the  Lord  Protector  dealt  with  Mazarin  on  the  basis  of 
toleration  for  Catholics,  but  his  promises  were  not  to 
be  publicly  announced.  Revolutions  do  not  make  the 
best  soil  for  veracity.  It  would  be  hard  to  deny  that 
before  Charles  great  dissemblers  had  been  wise  and 
politic  princes.  His  ancestor  King  Henry  VII,  his 
predecessor  Queen  Elizabeth  of  famous  memory,  his 
wife's  father  Henry  IV  of  France,  Louis  XI,  Charles 
V,  and  many  another  sagacious  figure  in  the  history 
of  European  states,  had  freely  and  effectively  adopted 
the  maxims  of  Machiavelli.  In  truth,  the  cause  of 
the  king's  ruin  lay  as  much  in  his  position  as  in  his 
character.  The  directing  portion  of  the  nation  had 
made  up  its  mind  to  alter  the  relations  of  crown  and 
Parliament,  and  it  was  hardly  possible  in  the  nature 
of  things — men  and  kings  being  what  they  are — 
that  Charles  should  passively  fall  into  the  new  posi- 
tion that  his  victorious  enemies  had  made  for  him. 
Europe  has  seen  many  constitutional  monarchies  at- 
tempted or  set  up  within  the  last  hundred  years.  In 
how  many  cases  has  the  new  system  been  carried  on 
without   disturbing   an   old   dynasty?     We   may   say 


204  OLR'ER  CROMWELL 

of  Charles  I  what  has  been  said  of  Louis  XVL 
Every  day  they  were  asking  the  king  for  the  impos- 
sible— to  deny  his  ancestors,  to  respect  the  constitu- 
tion that  stripped  him,  to  love  the  revolution  that  de- 
stroyed him.     How  could  it  be? 

It  is  beside  the  mark,  again,  to  lay  the  blame  upon 
the  absence  of  a  higher  intellectual  atmosphere.  It 
was  not  a  bad  intellectual  basis  that  made  the  catas- 
trophe certain,  but  antagonism  of  will,  the  clash  of 
character,  the  violence  of  party  passion  and  person- 
ality. The  king  was  determined  not  to  give  up  what 
the  reformers  were  determined  that  he  should  not 
keep.  He  felt  that  to  yield  would  be  to  betray  both 
those  who  had  gone  before  him,  and  his  children  who 
were  to  come  after.  His  opponents  felt  that  to  fall 
back  would  be  to  go  both  body  and  soul  into  chains. 
So  Presbyterians  and  Independents  feared  and  hated 
each  other,  not  merely  because  each  failed  in  intellec- 
tual perception  of  the  case  of  their  foe.  but  because 
their  blood  was  up.  because  they  believed  dissent  in 
opinion  to  mean  moral  obliquity,  because  sectional 
interests  were  at  stake,  and  for  all  those  other  reasons 
which  spring  from  that  spirit  of  sect  and  party  which 
is  so  innate  in  man,  and  always  mingles  so  much  evil 
with  whatever  it  may  have  of  good. 

The  undoing  of  Charles  was  not  merely  his  turn 
for  intrigue  and  double-dealing;  it  was  blindness  to 
signs,  mismeasurement  of  forces,  dishevelled  confu- 
sion of  means  and  ends.  Unhappily  mere  foolishness 
in  men  responsible  for  the  government  of  great  states 
is  apt  to  be  a  curse  as  heavy  as  the  crimes  of  tyrants. 
With  strange  self-confidence  Charles  was  hard  at 
work  upon  schemes  and  combinations,  all  at  best  most 
difficult  in  themselves,  and  each  of  them  violently  in- 
consistent wnth  the  other.     He  was  hopefully  nego- 


n  the  original  miniature  by  John  Hoskins,  at  Montagu 
House,  by  permission  of  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch. 


ALGERNON    SIDNEY. 


THE    KING    A    PRISONER  205 

tiating  with  the  Independents,  and  at  the  same  time 
both  with  the  CathoHc  Irish  and  with  the  Presbyterian 
Scots.  He  looked  to  the  support  of  the  Covenanters, 
and  at  the  same  time  he  rehed  upon  Montrose,  be- 
tween whom  and  the  Covenanters  there  was  now  an 
antagonism  almost  as  vindictive  as  a  Corsican  blood- 
feud.  He  professed  a  desire  to  come  to  an  under- 
standing with  his  people  and  Parliament,  yet  he  had 
a  chimerical  plan  for  collecting  a  new  army  to  crush 
both  Parliament  and  people;  and  he  was  looking  each 
day  for  the  arrival  of  Frenchmen,  or  Lorrainers,  or 
Dutchmen  or  Danes,  and  their  march  through  Kent 
or  Suffolk  upon  his  capital.  While  negotiating  with 
men  to  whom  hatred  of  the  Pope  was  the  breath  of 
their  nostrils,  he  was  allowing  the  queen  to  bargain 
for  a  hundred  thousand  crowns  in  one  event,  and  a 
second  hundred  in  another,  from  Antichrist  himself. 
He  must  have  known,  moreover,  that  nearly  every 
move  in  this  stealthy  game  was  more  or  less  well 
known  to  all  those  othen  players  against  whom  he 
had  so  improvidently  matched  himself. 

The  queen's  letters  during  all  these  long  months 
of  tribulation  shed  as  much  light  upon  the  character 
of  Charles  as  upon  her  own.  Complaint  of  his  lack 
of  constancy  and  resolution  is  the  everlasting  refrain. 
Want  of  perseverance  in  his  plans,  she  tells  him,  has 
been  his  ruin.  When  he  talks  of  peace  with  the  Par- 
liament she  vows  that  she  will  go  into  a  convent,  for 
she  will  never  trust  herself  with  those  who  will  then 
be  his  masters.  "If  you  change  again,  farewell  for- 
ever. If  you  have  broken  your  resolution,  nothing 
but  death  for  me.  As  long  as  the  Parliament  lasts 
you  are  no  king  for  me;  I  will  not  put  my  foot  in 
England."  We  can  have  no  better  measure  of 
Charles's  weakness  than  that  in  the  hour  of  adversity, 


206  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

so  desperate  for  both  of  them,  he  should  be  thus  ad- 
dressed by  a  wife  to  whom  he  had  been  wedded  for 
twenty  years. 

His  submission  is  complete.  He  will  not  have  a 
gentleman  for  his  son's  bedchamber,  nor  Montrose 
for  his  own  bedchamber,  without  her  consent.  He 
will  aot  decide  whether  it  is  best  for  him  to  make 
for  Ireland,  France,  or  Denmark,  until  he  knows  what 
she  thinks  best.  "If  I  quit  my  conscience,"  he  pleads, 
in  the  famous  sentiment  of  Lovelace,  ''how  unworthy 
I  make  myself  of  thy  love!"  With  that  curious 
streak  of  immovable  scruple  so  often  found  in  men 
in  whom  equivocation  is  a  habit  of  mind  and  practice, 
he  had  carefully  kept  his  oath  never  to  mention  mat- 
ters of  religion  to  his  Catholic  queen,  and  it  is  only 
under  stress  of  this  new  misconstruction  that  he  seeks 
to  put  himself  right  with  her,  by  explaining  his  posi- 
tion about  apostolic  succession,  the  divine  right  of 
bishops,  and  the  absolute  unlawfulness  of  Presbyte- 
rianism,  even  the  ally  and  confederate  of  rebellion. 

Nothing  that  he  was  able  to  do  could  disarm  the 
universal  anger  and  suspicion  which  the  seizure  of 
the  king's  papers  at  Naseby  had  begun,  and  the  dis- 
covery of  a  copy  of  Glamorgan's  treaty  at  Sligo  (Oc- 
tober, 1645)  ^^^^  carried  still  deeper.  The  Presby- 
terians in  their  discomfiture  openly  expressed  their 
fears  that  the  king  was  now  undone  forever.  Charles 
in  a  panic  offered  to  hand  over  the  management  of 
Ireland  to  his  Parliament,  thus  lightly  dropping  the 
whole  Irish  policy  on  which  he  had  for  long  been 
acting,  flinging  to  the  winds  all  his  engagements,  un- 
derstandings, and  promises  to  the  Irish  Catholics, 
and  handing  them  over  without  conditions  to  the 
tender  mercies  of  enemies  fiercely  thirsting  for  a 
bloody  retaliation.     His  recourse  to   foreign  powers 


THE    KING    A    PRISONER  207 

was  well  known.  The  despatch  of  the  Prince  of 
Wales  to  join  his  mother  in  France  was  felt  to  be 
the  unsealing  of  "a  fountain  of  foreign  war";  as 
the  queen  had  got  the  prince  into  her  hands,  she 
could  make  the  youth  go  to  mass  and  marry  the 
Duke  of  Orleans's  daughter.  Ten  thousand  men 
from  Ireland  were  to  overrun  the  Scottish  lowlands, 
and  then  to  raise  the  malignant  north  of  England. 
The  King  of  Denmark's  son  was  to  invade  the  north 
of  Scotland  with  three  or  four  thousand  Dutch  vet- 
erans. Eight  or  ten  thousand  French  were  to  join 
the  remnant  of  the  royal  army  in  Cornwall.  Even 
the  negotiations  that  had  been  so  long  in  progress  at 
Miinster,  and  were  by-and-by  to  end  the  Thirty  Years' 
War  and  consummate  Richelieu's  great  policy  in  the 
treaties  of  Westphalia,  were  viewed  with  apprehen- 
sion by  the  English  reformers,  for  a  peace  might 
mean  the  release  both  of  France  and  Spain  for  an 
attack  upon  England  in  these  days  of  divine  wrath 
and  unsearchable  judgments  against  the  land.  Prayer 
and  fasting  were  never  more  diligently  resorted  to 
than  now.  The  conflict  of  the  two  English  parties 
lost  none  of  its  sharpness  or  intensity.  The  success 
of  the  policy  of  the  Independents,  so  remarkably 
shown  at  Naseby,  pursued  as  it  had  been  against  com- 
mon opinion  at  Westminster,  became  more  command- 
ing with  every  new  disclosure  of  the  king's  designs. 
In  the  long  and  intricate  negotiations  with  the  king 
and  with  the  Scots  at  Newcastle,  Independent  aims 
had  been  justified  and  had  prevailed.  The  baffled 
Presbyterians  only  became  the  more  embittered.  At 
the  end  of  January,  1647,  ^  ^i^w  situation  became 
defined.  The  Scots,  unable  to  induce  the  king  to 
make  those  concessions  in  religion  without  which  not 
a  Scot  would  take  arms  to  help  him,  and  having  re- 


2o8  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

ceived  an  instalment  of  the  pay  that  was  due  to  them, 
marched  away  to  their  homes  across  the  border.  Com- 
missioners from  the  Enghsh  ParHament  took  their 
place  as  custodians  of  the  person  of  the  king.  By 
order  of  the  two  houses,  Holmby  in  the  county  of 
Northampton  was  assigned  to  him  as  his  residence, 
and  here  he  remained  until  the  month  of  June,  when 
once  more  the  scene  was  violently  transformed. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE    CRISIS    OF    1647 

IF  ever  there  was  in  the  world  a  revolution  with 
ideas  as  well  as  interests,  with  principle  and  not 
egotism  for  its  mainspring,  it  was  this.  At  the  same 
time  as  England,  France  was  torn  by  civil  war,  but  the 
civil  war  of  the  Fronde  was  the  conflict  of  narrow  aris- 
tocratic interests  with  the  newly  consolidated  suprem- 
acy of  the  monarch.  It  was  not  the  forerunner  of 
the  French  Revolution,  with  all  its  hopes  and  promises 
of  a  regenerated  time;  the  Fronde  was  the  expiring 
struggle  of  the  belated  survivors  of  the  feudal  age. 
The  English  struggle  was  very  different.  Never  was 
a  fierce  party  conflict  so  free  of  men  who,  in  Dante's 
blighting  phrase,  "were  for  themselves."  Yet  much 
as  there  was  in  the  Puritan  uprising  to  inspire  and 
exalt,  its  ideas,  when  tested  by  the  pressure  of  circum- 
stance, showed  themselves  unsettled  and  vague ;  prin- 
ciples were  slow  to  ripen,  forces  were  indecisively  dis- 
tributed, its  theology  did  not  help.  This  was  what 
Cromwell,  henceforth  the  great  practical  mind  of  the 
movement,  was  now  painfully  to  discover. 

It  was  not  until  1645  that  Cromwell  had  begun  to 
stand  clearly  out  in  the  popular  imagination,  alike  of 
friends  and  foes.  He  was  the  idol  of  his  troops.  He 
prayed  and  preached  among  them ;  he  played  uncouth 
practical  jokes  with  them;  he  was  not  above  a  snow- 

14  209 


210  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

ball  match  against  them;  he  was  a  brisk,  energetic, 
skilful  soldier,  and  he  was  an  invincible  commander. 
In  Parliament  he  made  himself  felt,  as  having  the  art  of 
hitting  the  right  debating-nail  upon  the  head.  The  saints 
had  an  instinct  that  he  was  their  man,  and  that  they 
could  trust  him  to  stand  by  them  when  the  day  of  trial 
came.  A  good  commander  of  horse,  say  the  experts, 
is  as  rare  as  a  good  commander-in-chief,  he  needs  so 
rare  a  union  of  prudence  with  impetuosity.  What 
Cromwell  was  in  the  field  he  was  in  council ;  bold,  but 
wary;  slow  to  raise  his  arm,  but  swift  to  strike;  fiery 
in  the  assault,  but  knowing  when  to  draw  bridle. 
These  rare  combinations  were  invaluable;  for  even  the 
heated  and  headlong  revolutionary  is  not  sorry  to 
find  a  leader  cooler  than  himself.  Above  all,  and  as 
the  mainspring  of  all,  he  had  heart  and  conscience. 
While  the  Scots  are  striving  to  make  the  king  into  a 
Covenanter,  and  the  Parliament  to  get  the  Scots  out  of 
the  country,  and  the  Independents  to  find  means  of 
turning  the  political  scale  against  the  Presbyterians, 
Cromwell  finds  time  to  intercede  with  a  Royalist  gen- 
tleman on  behalf  of  some  honest  poor  neighbors  who 
are  being  molested  for  their  theologies.  To  the  same 
time  (1646)  belongs  that  well-known  passage  where 
he  says  to  one  of  his  daughters  that  her  sister  bewails 
her  vanity  and  carnal  mind,  and  seeks  after  what  will 
satisfy :  "And  thus  to  be  a  Seeker  is  to  be  of  the  best 
sect  next  to  a  Finder,  and  such  an  one  shall  every  faith- 
ful, humble  Seeker  be  at  the  end.  Happy  Seeker, 
happy  Finder!" 

In  no  contest  in  our  history  has  the  disposition  of 
the  pieces  on  the  political  chessboard  been  more  per- 
plexed. What  Oliver  perceived  as  he  scanned  each 
quarter  of  the  political  horizon  was  first  a  Parliament  in 
which  the  active  leaders  were  Presbyterians,  confronted 


THE    CRISIS    OF    1647  211 

by  an  army,  at  once  suspected  and  suspicious,  whose 
active  leadeps  were  Independents.  The  fervor  of  the 
preachers  had  been  waxing  hotter  and  still  hotter,  and 
the  angry  trumpet  sounding  a  shriller  blast.  He  saw 
the  city  of  London,  which  had  been  the  mainstay  of 
the  Parliament  in  the  war,  now  just  as  strenuous  for 
a  good  peace.  He  saw  an  army  in  which  he  knew  that 
his  own  authority  stood  high,  but  where  events  were 
soon  to  show  that  he  did  not  yet  know  all  the  fierce 
undercurrents  and  dark  and  pent-up  forces.  Finally, 
he  saw  a  king  beaten  in  the  field,  but  still  unbending 
in  defense  of  his  religion,  his  crown,  and  his  friends, 
and  boldly  confident  that  nothing  could  prevent  him 
from  still  holding  the  scale  between  the  two  rival  bands 
of  his  triumphant  enemies.  Outside  this  kingdom  he 
saw  the  combative  and  dogged  Scots  who  had  just 
been  persuaded  to  return  to  their  own  country,  still 
sharply  watching  English  affairs  over  the  border,  and 
still  capable  of  drawing  the  sword  for  king  or  for  Par- 
liament, as  best  might  suit  the  play  of  their  own  in- 
furiated factions.  Finally  there  was  Ireland,  dis- 
tracted, dangerous,  sullen,  and  a  mainspring  of 
difficulty  and  confusion,  now  used  by  the  Parliament 
in  one  way  against  the  army,  and  now  by  the  king  in 
another  way  against  both  army  and  Parliament.  The 
cause  in  short,  whether  Cromwell  yet  looked  so  far  in 
front  or  not,  was  face  to  face  with  the  gloomy  alter- 
natives of  a  perfidious  restoration,  or  a  new  campaign 
and  war  at  all  hazards. 

There  is  no  other  case  in  history  where  the  victors 
in  a  great  civil  war  were  left  so  entirely  without  the 
power  of  making  their  own  settlement,  and  the  van- 
quished so  plainly  umpires  in  their  own  quarrel.  The 
beaten  king  was  to  have  another  chance,  his  best  and 
his  last.     Even  now  if  we  could  read  old  history  like 


212  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

a  tale  of  which  we  do  not  know  the  end,  whether  it 
should  be  that  sentiment  has  drawn  the  reader's  sym- 
pathies to  the  side  of  the  king,  or  right  reason  drawn 
them  to  the  side  of  the  king's  adversaries,  it  might 
quicken  the  pulse  when  he  comes  to  the  exciting  and 
intricate  events  of  1647,  ^"^  sees  his  favorite  cause, 
whichever  it  chances  to  be,  trembling  in  the  scale. 

Clarendon  says  that  though  the  Presbyterians  were 
just  as  malicious  and  as  wicked  as  the  Independents, 
there  was  this  great  difference  between  them,  that  the 
Independents  always  did  what  made  for  the  end  they 
had  in  view,  while  the  Presbyterians  always  did  what 
was  most  sure  to  cross  their  own  design  and  hinder 
their  own  aim.  These  are  differences  that  in  all  ages 
mark  the  distinction  between  any  strong  political 
party  and  a  weak  one;  between  powerful  leaders  who 
get  things  done,  and  impotent  leaders  who  are  always 
waiting  for  something  that  never  happens. 

The  pressure  of  the  armed  struggle  with  the  king 
being  withdrawn,  party  spirit  in  Parliament  revived  in 
full  vigor.  The  Houses  were  face  to  face  with  the 
dangerous  task  of  disbanding  the  powerful  force  that 
had  fought  their  battle  and  established  their  authority, 
and  was  fully  conscious  of  the  magnitude  of  its  work. 
To  undertake  disbandment  in  England  was  indispen- 
sable; the  nation  was  groaning  under  the  burden  of 
intolerable  taxation,  and  the  necessity  of  finding  troops 
for  service  in  Ireland  was  urgent.  The  City  clamored 
for  disbandment,  and  that  a  good  peace  should  be  made 
with  his  Majesty.  The  party  interest  of  the  Presby- 
terian majority,  moreover,  pointed  in  the  same  way; 
to  break  up  the  New  Model,  and  dispose  of  as  many 
of  the  soldiers  as  could  be  induced  to  reenlist  for  the 
distant  wilds  of  Ireland,  would  be  to  destroy  the  for- 
tress of  their  Independent  rivals. 


THE    CRISIS    OF    1647  213 

There  is  no  evidence  that  Cromwell  took  any  part 
in  the  various  disbanding  votes  as  they  passed  through 
the  House  of  Commons  in  the  early  m.onths  of  1647, 
and  he  seems  to  have  been  slack  in  his  attendance.  No 
operation  was  ever  conducted  with  worse  judgment. 
Instead  of  meeting  the  men  frankly,  Parliament  chaf- 
fered, framed  their  act  of  indemnity  too  loosely,  offered 
only  eight  weeks  of  pay  though  between  fifty  and  sixty 
weeks  were  overdue,  and  then  when  the  soldiers  ad- 
dressed them,  suppressed  their  petitions  or  burned 
them  by  the  hangman,  and  passed  angry  resolutions 
against  their  authors  as  enemies  of  the  state  and  dis- 
turbers of  the  public  peace.  This  is  the  party  of  order 
all  over.  It  is  a  curious  circumstance  that  a  proposal 
should  actually  have  been  made  in  Parliament  to  arrest 
Cromwell  for  complicity  in  these  proceedings  of  the 
army  at  the  moment  when  some  of  the  soldiers,  on  the 
other  hand,  blamed  him  for  stopping  and  undermining 
their  petitions,  and  began  to  think  they  had  been  in  too 
great  a  hurry  to  give  him  their  affections. 

The  army  in  their  quarters  at  Saffron  Walden  grew 
more  and  more  restive.  They  chose  agents,  entered 
into  correspondence  for  concerted  action,  and  framed 
new  petitions.  Three  troopers,  who  brought  a  letter 
with  these  communications,  addressed  to  Cromwell 
and  two  of  the  other  generals  in  Parliament,  were  sum- 
moned to  the  bar,  and  their  stoutness  so  impressed 
or  scared  the  House  that  Cromwell  and  Ireton,  Fleet- 
wood and  the  sturdy  Skippon,  were  despatched  to  the 
army  to  feel  the  ground.  They  held  a  meeting  in  the 
church  at  Saffron  Walden,  with  a  couple  of  hundred 
officers  and  a  number  of  private  soldiers,  and  listened 
to  their  reports  from  the  various  regiments.  Nothing 
was  said  either  about  religion  or  politics;  arrears 
were  the  sore  point,  and  if  there  were  no  better  offer 


214  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

on  that  head,  then  no  disbandment.  The  whole  scene 
and  its  tone  vividly  recall  the  proceedings  of  a  modern 
trade-union  in  the  reasonable  stages  of  a  strike.  In 
temper,  habit  of  mind,  plain  sense,  and  even  in  words 
and  form  of  speech,  the  English  soldier  of  the  New 
Model  two  centuries  and  a  half  ago  must  have  been 
very  much  like  the  sober  and  respectable  miner,  plow- 
man, or  carter  of  to-day.  But  the  violence  of  w^ar 
had  hardened  their  fiber,  had  made  them  rough  under 
contradiction,  and  prepared  them  both  for  bold 
thoughts  and  bolder  acts. 

Meanwhile  a  thing  of  dark  omen  happened.  At  the 
beginning  of  May,  while  Cromwell  was  still  at  Saffron 
Walden.  it  was  rumored  that  certain  foot-soldiers 
about  Cambridgeshire  had  given  out  that  they  would 
go  to  Holmby  to  fetch  the  king.  The  story  caused 
much  offense  and  scandal,  but  it  very  soon  came  true. 
One  summer  evening  small  parties  of  horse  were  ob- 
served in  the  neighborhood  of  Holmby.  At  daybreak 
Cornet  Joyce  made  his  way  within  the  gates  at  the 
head  of  five  hundred  mounted  troopers.  Later  in  the 
day  a  report  got  abroad  that  the  Parliament  would 
send  a  force  to  carry  the  king  to  London.  Joyce  and 
his  party  promptly  made  up  their  minds.  At  ten  at 
night  the  cornet  awoke  the  king  from  slumber,  and 
respectfully  requested  him  to  move  to  other  quarters 
next  day.  The  king  hesitated.  At  six  in  the  morn- 
ing the  conversation  was  resumed.  The  king  asked 
Joyce  whether  he  was  acting  by  the  general's  commis- 
sion. Joyce  said  that  he  w^as  not,  and  pointed  as  his 
authority  to  the  five  hundred  men  on  their  horses  in 
the  courtyard.  "As  well-wTitten  a  commission,  and 
with  as  fine  a  frontispiece,  as  I  have  ever  seen  in  my 
life,"  pleasantly  said  Charles.  The  king  had  good 
reason  for  his  cheerfulness.     He  was  persuaded  that 


THE    CRISIS    OF    1647  215 

the  cornet  could  not  act  without  the  counsel  of  greater 
persons,  and  if  so,  this  could  only  mean  that  the  mili- 
tary leaders  were  resolved  on  a  breach  with  the  Parlia- 
ment. From  such  a  quarrel  Charles  might  well  believe 
that  to  him  nothing  but  good  could  come. 

Whether  Cromwell  was  really  concerned  either  in 
the  king's  removal,  or  in  any  other  stage  of  this  ob- 
scure transaction,  remains  an  open  question.  What 
is  not  improbable  is  that  Cromwell  may  have  told  Joyce 
to  secure  the  king's  person  at  Holmby  against  the  sus- 
pected designs  of  the  Parliament,  and  that  the  actual 
removal  was  prompted  on  the  spot  by  a  supposed  emer- 
gency. On  the  other  hand,  the  hypothesis  is  hardly 
any  more  improbable  that  the  whole  design  sprang  from 
the  agitators,  and  that  Cromwell  had  no  part  in  it. 
It  was  noticed  later  as  a  significant  coincidence  that  on 
the  very  evening  on  which  Joyce  forced  his  way  into 
the  king's  bedchamber,  Cromwell,  suspecting  that  the 
leaders  of  the  Presbyterian  majority  were  about  to 
arrest  him,  mounted  his  horse  and  rode  off  to  join  the 
army.  His  share  in  Joyce's  seizure  and  removal  of 
the  king  afterward  is  less  important  than  his  approval 
of  it  as  a  strong  and  necessary  lesson  to  the  majority 
in  the  Parliament. 

So  opened  a  more  startling  phase  of  revolutionary 
transformation.  For  Joyce's  exploit  at  Holmby  be- 
gins the  descent  down  those  fated  steeps  in  which  each 
successive  violence  adds  new  momentum  to  the  vio- 
lence that  is  to  follow,  and  pays  retribution  for  the 
violence  that  has  gone  before.  Purges,  proscriptions, 
camp  courts,  executions,  major-generals,  dictatorship, 
restoration — this  was  the  toilsome,  baffling  path  on  to 
which,  in  spite  of  hopeful  auguries  and  prognostica- 
tions, both  sides  were  now  irrevocably  drawn. 

Parliament  was  at  length  really  awake  to  the  power 


2i6  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

of  the  soldiers,  and  their  determination  to  use  it.  The 
City,  with  firmer  nerve  but  still  with  lively  alarm, 
watched  headquarters  rapidly  changed  to  St.  Albans, 
to  Berkhampstead.  to  Uxbridge,  to  Wycombe — now 
drawing  off,  then  hovering  closer,  launching  to-day  a 
declaration,  to-morrow  a  remonstrance,  next  day  a 
vindication,  like  dangerous  flashes  out  of  a  sullen  cloud. 

For  the  first  time  "purge"  took  its  place  in  the  politi- 
cal vocabulary  of  the  day.  Just  as  the  king  had  at- 
tacked the  five  members,  so  now  the  army  attacked 
eleven,  and  demanded  the  ejection  of  the  whole  group 
of  Presbyterian  leaders  from  the  House  of  Commons, 
with  Denzil  Holies  at  the  head  of  them  (June  16-26). 
Among  the  Eleven  were  men  as  pure  and  as  patriotic 
as  the  immortal  Five,  and  when  we  think  that  the  end 
of  these  heroic  twenty  years  was  the  Restoration,  it  is 
not  easy  to  see  why  we  should  denounce  the  pedantry 
of  the  Parliament,  whose  ideas  for  good  or  ill  at  last 
prevailed,  and  should  reserve  all  our  glorification  for 
the  army,  who  proved  to  have  no  ideas  that  would 
either  work  or  that  the  country  would  accept.  The 
demand  for  the  expulsion  of  the  Eleven  was  the  first 
step  in  the  path  which  was  to  end  in  the  removal  of 
the  Bauble  in  1653. 

Incensed  by  these  demands,  and  by  what  they  took 
to  be  the  weakness  of  their  confederates  in  the  Com- 
mons, the  City  addressed  one  strong  petition  after 
another,  and  petitions  were  speedily  followed  by  actual 
revolt.  The  seamen  and  the  watermen  on  the  river- 
side, the  young  men  and  apprentices  from  Aldersgate 
and  Cheapside,  entered  into  one  of  the  many  solemn 
engagements  of  these  distracted  years,  and  when  their 
engagement  was  declared  by  the  bewildered  Commons 
to  be  dangerous,  insolent,  and  treasonable,  excited 
mobs  trooped  down  to  Westminster,  made  short  work 


From  the  original  portrait  at  Chequers  Court,  by  permission  of 
Mrs.  Frankland-Russell-Astley. 

CORNET  GEORGE  JOYCE. 


THE    CRISIS    OF    1647  217 

of  the  nine  gentlemen  who  that  day  composed  the 
House  of  Lords,  forcing  them  to  cross  the  obnoxious 
declaration  off  their  journals,  tumultuously  besieged 
the  House  of  Commons,  some  of  them  even  rudely 
making  their  way,  as  Charles  had  done  six  years  be- 
fore, within  the  sacred  doors  and  on  to  the  inviolable 
floor,  until  members  drew  their  swords  and  forced  the 
intruders  out.  When  the  Speaker  would  have  left  the 
House,  the  mob  returned  to  the  charge,  drove  him  back 
to  his  chair,  and  compelled  him  to  put  the  question 
that  the  king  be  invited  to  come  to  London  forthwith 
with  honor,  freedom,  and  safety.  So  readily,  as  usual, 
did  reaction  borrow  at  second  hand  the  turbulent  ways 
of  revolution. 

In  disgust  at  this  violent  outrage,  the  speakers  of 
the  two  houses  (July  30),  along  with  a  considerable 
body  of  members,  betook  themselves  to  the  army. 
When  they  accompanied  Fairfax  and  his  officers  on 
horseback  in  a  review  on  Hounslow  Heath,  the  troop- 
ers greeted  them  with  mighty  acclamations  of  "Lords 
and  Commons  and  a  free  Parliament!"  The  effect  of 
the  manoeuvers  of  the  reactionists  in  the  City  was  to 
place  the  army  in  the  very  position  that  they  were 
eager  to  take,  of  being  protectors  of  what  they  chose  to 
consider  the  true  Parliament,  to  make  a  movement  upon 
London  not  only  defensible,  but  inevitable,  to  force  the 
hand  of  Cromwell,  and  to  inflame  still  higher  the  ardor 
of  the  advocates  of  the  revolutionary  Thorough.  Of  the 
three  great  acts  of  military  force  against  the  Parlia- 
ment, now  happened  the  first  (August,  1647).  The 
doors  were  not  roughly  closed  as  Oliver  closed  them 
on  the  historic  day  in  April,  1653,  ^^^^  there  was  no 
sweeping  purge  like  that  of  Pride  in  December,  1648. 
Fairfax  afterward  sought  credit  for  having  now  re- 
sisted the  demand  to  put  military  violence  upon  the 


2i8  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

House,  but  Cromwell  with  his  assent  took  a  course 
that  came  to  the  same  thing.  He  stationed  cavalry 
in  Hyde  Park,  and  then  marched  down  to  his  place  in 
the  House,  accompanied  by  soldiers,  who  after  he  had 
gone  in  hung  about  the  various  approaches  with  a  sig- 
nificance that  nobody  mistook.  The  soldiers  had  defi- 
nitely turned  politicians,  and  even  without  the  experi- 
ence that  Europe  has  passed  through  since,  it  ought  not 
to  have  been  very  hard  to  foresee  what  their  politics 
would  be. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE    OFFICERS    AS    POLITICIANS 

ENGLAND  throughout  showed  herself  the  least 
revolutionary  of  the  three  kingdoms,  hardly  revo- 
lutionary at  all.  Here  was  little  of  the  rugged,  dour, 
and  unyielding  persistency  of  the  northern  Coven- 
anters, none  of  the  savage  aboriginal  frenzy  of  the 
Irish.  Cromwell  was  an  Englishman  all  over,  and  it 
is  easy  to  conceive  the  dismay  with  which  in  the  first 
half  of  1647  he  slowly  realized  the  existence  of  a  fierce 
insurgent  leaven  in  the  army.  The  worst  misfortune 
of  a  civil  war,  said  Cromwell's  contemporary,  De  Retz, 
is  that  one  becomes  answerable  even  for  the  mischief 
one  has  not  done.  "All  the  fools  turn  madmen,  and 
even  the  wisest  have  no  chance  of  either  acting  or 
speaking  as  if  they  were  in  their  right  wits."  In  spite 
of  the  fine  things  that  have  been  said  of  heroes,  and  the 
might  of  their  will,  a  statesman  in  such  a  case  as  Crom- 
well's soon  finds  how  little  he  can  do  to  create  marked 
situations,  and  how  the  main  part  of  his  business  is  in 
slowly  parrying,  turning,  managing  circumstances  for 
which  he  is  not  any  more  responsible  than  he  is  for 
his  own  existence,  and  yet  which  are  his  masters,  and 
of  which  he  can  only  make  the  best  or  the  worst. 

Cromwell  never  showed  a  more  sagacious  insight 
into  the  hard  necessities  of  the  situation  than  when  he 
endeavored  to  form  an  alliance  between  the  king  and 
219 


220  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

the  army.  All  the  failures  and  disasters  that  harassed 
him  from  this  until  the  day  of  his  death,  arose  from 
the  breakdown  of  the  negotiations  now  undertaken. 
The  restoration  of  Charles  I  by  Cromwell  would  have 
been  a  very  different  thing  from  the  restoration  of 
Charles  II  by  IMonk.  In  the  midsummer  of  1647 
Cromwell  declared  that  he  desired  no  alteration  of  the 
civil  government,  and  no  meddling  with  the  Presby- 
terian settlement,  and  no  opening  of  a  way  for  "licen- 
tious liberty  under  pretence  of  obtaining  ease  for 
tender  consciences." 

Unhappily  for  any  prosperous  issue,  Cromwell  and 
his  men  were  met  by  a  constancy  as  fervid  as  their 
own.  Charles  followed  slippery  and  crooked  paths ; 
but  he  was  as  sure  as  Cromwell  that  he  had  God  on  his 
side,  that  he  was  serving  divine  purposes  and  uphold- 
ing things  divinely  instituted.  He  was  as  unyielding 
as  Cromwell  in  fidelity  to  wdiat  he  accounted  the  stand- 
ards of  personal  duty  and  national  well-being.  He 
was  as  patient  as  Cromwell  in  facing  the  ceaseless 
buffets  and  misadventures  that  were  at  last  to  sweep 
him  down  the  cataract.  Charles  was  not  without  ex- 
cuse for  supposing  that  by  playing  off  army  against 
Parliament  and  Independent  against  Presbyterian,  he 
would  still  come  into  his  own  again.  The  jealousy 
and  ill-will  between  the  contending  parties  was  at  its 
height,  and  there  w^as  no  reason  either  in  conscience 
or  in  policy  why  he  should  not  make  the  most  of  that 
fact.  Each  side  sought  to  use  him,  and  from  his  own 
point  of  view  he  had  a  right  to  strike  the  best  bargain 
that  he  could  with  either.  Unfortunately,  he  could 
not  bring  himself  to  strike  any  bargain  at  all,  and  the 
chance  passed.  Cromwell's  efforts  only  served  to 
weaken  his  own  authority  with  the  army,  and  he  was 
driven  to  give  up  hopes  of  the  king,  as  he  had  already 


THE    OFFICERS    AS    POLITICIANS      221 

been  driven  to  give  up  hopes  of  the  ParHament.  This 
w^as  in  effect  to  be  thrown  back  against  all  his  wishes 
and  instincts  upon  the  army  alone,  and  to  find  himself, 
by  nature  a  moderator  with  a  passion  for  order  in  its 
largest  meaning,  flung  into  the  midst  of  military  and 
constitutional  anarchy. 

Carlyle  is  misleading  when,  in  deprecating  a  com- 
parison between  French  Jacobins  and  English  Sec- 
taries, he  says  that,  apart  from  difference  in  situation, 
"there  is  the  difference  between  the  believers  in  Jesus 
Christ  and  believers  in  Jean  Jacques,  which  is  still 
more  considerable."  It  would  be  nearer  the  mark  to 
say  that  the  Sectaries  were  beforehand  with  Jean 
Jacques,  and  that  half  the  troubles  that  confronted 
Cromwell  and  his  men  sprang  from  the  fact  that  Eng- 
lish Sectaries  were  now  saying  to  one  another  some- 
thing very  like  what  Frenchmen  said  in  Rousseau's 
dialect  a  hundred  and  forty  years  later.  "No  man 
who  knows  right,"  says  Milton,  "can  be  so  stupid  as 
to  deny  that  all  men  were  naturally  born  free."  In 
the  famous  document  drawn  up  in  the  army  in  the 
autumn  of  1647,  ^"^^  known  (along  with  two  other 
documents  under  the  same  designation  propounded  in 
1648-49)  as  the  Agreement  of  the  People,  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  people  through  their  representatives ;  the 
foundation  of  society  in  common  right,  liberty,  and 
safety;  the  freedom  of  every  man  in  the  faith  of  his 
religion ;  and  all  the  rest  of  the  catalogue  of  the  rights 
of  man,  are  all  set  forth  as  clearly  as  they  ever  were 
by  Robespierre  or  by  Jefferson.  In  truth  the  phrase 
may  differ,  and  the  sanctions  and  the  temper  may 
differ;  and  yet  in  the  thought  of  liberty,  equality,  and 
fraternity,  in  the  dream  of  natural  rights,  in  the  rain- 
bow vision  of  an  inalienable  claim  to  be  left  free  in  life, 
liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  there  is  something 


222  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

that  has  for  centuries  from  age  to  age  evoked  spon- 
taneous thrills  in  the  hearts  of  toiling,  suffering,  hope- 
ful men — something  that  they  need  no  philosophic 
book  to  teach  them. 

W^hen  Baxter  came  among  the  soldiers  after  Naseby, 
he  found  them  breathing  the  spirit  of  conquerors. 
The  whole  atmosphere  was  changed.  They  now  took 
the  king  for  a  tyrant  and  an  enemy,  and  wondered  only 
whether,  if  they  might  fight  against  him,  they  might 
not  also  kill  or  crush  him — in  itself  no  unwarrantable 
inference.  He  heard  them  crying  out,  "What  were 
the  Lords  of  England  but  William  the  Conqueror's 
colonels,  or  the  barons  but  his  majors,  or  the  knights 
but  his  captains?"  From  this  pregnant  conclusions 
followed.  Logic  had  begun  its  work,  and  in  men  of  a 
certain  temperament  political  logic  is  apt  to  turn  into 
a  strange  poison.  They  will  not  rest  until  they  have 
drained  first  principles  to  their  very  dregs.  They 
argue  down  from  the  necessities  of  abstract  reasoning 
until  they  have  ruined  all  the  favoring  possibilities  of 
concrete  circumstance. 

We  have  at  this  time  to  distinguish  political  councils 
from  military.  There  was  almost  from  the  first  a 
standing  council  of  war,  exclusively  composed  of  offi- 
cers of  higher  rank.  This  body  was  not  concerned 
in  politics.  The  general  council  of  the  army, 
which  was  first  founded  during  the  summer  of  1647, 
was  a  mixture  of  officers  and  the  agents  of  the  private 
soldiers.  It  contained  certain  of  the  generals,  and 
four  representatives  from  each  regiment,  two  of  them 
officers  and  two  of  them  soldiers  chosen  by  the  men. 
This  important  assembly,  with  its  two  combined 
branches,  did  not  last  in  that  shape  for  more  than  a 
few  months.  After  the  execution  of  the  king,  the 
agitators,  or  direct  representatives  of  the  men,  dropped 


THE   OFFICERS   AS    POLITICIANS      223 

off  or  were  shut  out,  and  what  remained  was  a  council 
of  officers.  They  retained  their  power  until  the  end; 
it  was  with  them  that  Cromwell  had  to  deal.  The 
politics  of  the  army  became  the  governing  element  of 
the  situation;  it  was  here  that  those  new  forces  were 
being  evolved  which,  when  the  Long  Parliament  first 
met,  nobody  intended  or  foresaw,  and  that  gave  to  the 
Rebellion  a  direction  that  led  Cromwell  into  strange 
latitudes. 

Happy  chance  has  preserved,  and  the  industry  of  a 
singularly  clear-headed  and  devoted  student  has  res- 
cued and  explored,  vivid  and  invaluable  pictures  of  the 
half-chaotic  scene.  At  Saffron  Walden,  in  May 
(1647),  Cromwell  urged  the  officers  to  strengthen 
the  deference  of  their  men  for  the  authority  of  Parlia- 
ment, for  if  once  that  authority  were  to  fail,  confusion 
must  follow.  At  Reading,  in  July,  the  position  had 
shifted,  the  temperature  had  risen,  Parliament  in  con- 
federacy with  the  City  had  become  the  enemy,  though 
there  was  still  a  strong  group  at  Westminster  who 
were  the  soldier's  friends.  Cromwell  could  no  longer 
proclaim  the  authority  of  Parliament  as  the  paramount 
object,  for  he  knew  this  to  be  a  broken  reed.  But  he 
changed  ground  as  little  as  he  could  and  as  slowly  as 
he  could. 

Here  we  first  get  a  clear  sight  of  the  temper  of 
Cromwell  as  a  statesman  grappling  at  the  same  mo- 
ment with  Presbyterians  in  Parliament,  with  Extrem- 
ists in  the  army,with  the  king  in  the  closet — a  task  for  a 
hero.  In  manner  he  was  always  what  Clarendon  calls 
rough  and  brisk.  He  declared  that  he  and  his  colleagues 
were  as  swift  as  anybody  else  in  their  feelings  and  de- 
sires; nay,  more,  "Truly  I  am  very  often  judged  as 
one  that  goes  too  fast  that  way,"  and  it  is  the  peculiar- 
ity of  men  like  me,  he  says,  to  think  dangers  more 


224  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

imaginary  than  real,  "to  be  always  making  haste,  and 
more  sometimes  perhaps  than  good  speed."  This  is 
one  of  the  too  few  instructive  glimpses  that  we  have 
of  the  real  Oliver.  Unity  was  first.  Let  no  man 
exercise  his  parts  to  strain  things,  and  to  open  up  long 
disputes  or  needless  contradictions,  or  to  sow  the  seeds 
of  dissatisfaction.  They  might  be  in  the  right  or  we 
might  be  in  the  right,  but  if  they  were  to  divide,  then 
were  they  both  in  the  wrong.  On  the  merits  of  the 
particular  question  of  the  moment,  it  was  idle  to  tell 
him  that  their  friends  in  London  would  like  to  see  them 
march  up.  "  'T  is  the  general  good  of  the  kingdom 
that  we  ought  to  consult.  That  's  the  question, 
what 's  for  their  good,  not  zvhat  pleases  them."  They 
might  be  driven  to  march  on  to  London,  he  told  them, 
but  an  understanding  was  the  most  desirable  way,  and 
the  other  a  way  of  necessity,  and  not  to  be  done  but  in 
a  way  of  necessity.  What  was  obtained  by  an  under- 
standing would  be  firm  and  durable.  "Things  ob- 
tained by  force,  though  never  so  good  in  themselves, 
tvoidd  be  both  less  to  their  honor,  and  less  likely  to 
last."  "Really,  really,  have  what  you  will  have;  that 
you  have  by  force,  I  look  upon  as  nothing."  "I  could 
wish,"  he  said  earlier,  "that  we  might  remember  this 
always,  that  zvhat  we  gain  in  a  free  way,  it  is  better 
than  tzi'ice  as  much  in  a  forced,  and  will  be  more  truly 
ours  and  our  posterity's."  It  is  one  of  the  harshest 
ironies  of  history  that  the  name  of  this  famous  man, 
who  started  on  the  severest  stage  of  his  journey  with 
this  broad  and  far  reaching  principle,  should  have  be- 
come the  favorite  symbol  of  the  shallow  faith  that 
force  is  the  only  remedy. 

The  general  council  of  the  army  at  Putney  in  Octo- 
ber and  November  (1647)  became  a  constituent  as- 
sembly.    In  June  Ireton  had  drawn  up  for  them  a 


THE   OFFICERS    AS    POLITICIANS      225 

declaration  of  their  wishes  as  to  the  "setthng  of  our 
own  and  the  king's  own  rights,  freedom,  peace,  and 
safety."  This  was  the  first  sign  of  using  mihtary 
association  for  poHtical  ends.  We  are  not  a  mere  mer- 
cenary army,  they  said,  but  are  called  forth  in  defense 
of  our  own  and  the  people's  just  rights  and  liberties. 
We  took  up  arms  in  judgment  and  conscience  to  those 
ends,  against  all  arbitrary  power,  violence,  and  oppres- 
sion, and  against  all  particular  parties  or  interests 
whatsoever.  These  ideas  were  ripened  by  Ireton  into 
the  memorable  Heads  of  the  Proposals  of  the  Army,  a 
document  that  in  days  to  come  made  its  influence  felt 
in  the  schemes  of  government  during  the  Common- 
wealth and  the  Protectorate. 

In  these  discussions  in  the  autumn  of  1647,  j^^st  as 
the  Levelers  anticipate  Rousseau,  so  do  Oliver  and 
Ireton  recall  Burke.  After  all,  these  are  only  the  two 
eternal  voices  in  revolutions,  the  standing  antagonisms 
through  history  between  the  natural  man  and  social 
order.  In  October  the  mutinous  section  of  the  army 
presented  to  the  council  a  couple  of  documents,  the 
Case  of  the  Army  Stated  and  an  Agreement  of  the 
People — a  title  that  was  also  given  as  I  have  said,  to 
a  document  of  Lilburne's  at  the  end  of  1648.  and  to 
one  of  Ireton's  at  the  beginning  of  1649.  Here  they 
set  down  the  military  grievances  of  the  army  in  the 
first  place,  and  in  the  second  they  set  out  the  details 
of  a  plan  of  government  resting  upon  the  supreme  au- 
thority of  a  House  of  Commons  chosen  by  universal 
suffrage,  and  in  spirit  and  in  detail  essentially  repub- 
lican. This  was  the  strange  and  formidable  phantom 
that  now  rose  up  before  men  who  had  set  out  on  their 
voyage  with  Pym  and  Hampden.  If  we  think  that 
the  headsman  at  Whitehall  is  now  little  more  than  a 
year  off,  what  followed  is  just  as  startling.     Ireton 


226  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

at  once  declared  that  he  did  not  seek,  and  would  not 
act  with  those  who  sought,  the  destruction  either  of 
Parliament  or  king.  Cromwell,  taking  the  same  line, 
was  more  guarded  and  persuasive.  "The  pretensions 
and  the  expressions  in  your  constitutions,"  he  said, 
"are  very  plausible,  and  if  we  could  jump  clean  out  of 
one  sort  of  government  into  another,  it  is  just  possible 
there  would  not  have  been  much  dispute.  But  is  this 
jump  so  easy?  How  do  we  know  that  other  people 
may  not  put  together  a  constitution  as  plausible  as 
yours?  .  .  .  Even  if  this  were  the  only  plan  pro- 
posed, you  must  consider  not  only  its  consequences, 
but  the  ways  and  means  of  accomplishing  it.  Accord- 
ing" to  reason  and  judgment,  were  the  spirits  and  tem- 
per of  the  people  of  this  nation  prepared  to  receive  and 
to  go  along  with  it?"  If  he  could  see  likelihood  of 
visible  popular  support  he  would  be  satisfied,  for,  adds 
Oliver,  in  a  sentence  that  might  have  come  straight 
out  of  Burke,  "In  the  government  of  nations,  that 
which  is  to  be  looked  after  is  the  affections  of  the 
people." 

Oliver  said  something  about  their  being  bound  by 
certain  engagements  and  obligations  to  which  previous 
declarations  had  committed  them  with  the  public.  "It 
may  be  true  enough,"  cried  Wildman,  one  of  the 
Ultras,  "that  God  protects  men  in  keeping  honest 
promises,  but  every  promise  must  be  considered  after- 
ward, when  you  are  pressed  to  keep  it,  whether  it  was 
honest  or  just,  or  not.  If  it  be  not  a  just  engagement, 
then  it  is  a  plain  act  of  honesty  for  the  man  who  lias 
made  it  to  recede  from  his  former  judgment  and  to 
abhor  it."  This  slippery  sophistry,  so  much  in  the 
vein  of  King  Charles  himself,  brought  Ireton  swiftly 
to  his  feet  with  a  clean  and  rapid  debating  point. 
"You  tell  us,"  he  said,  "that  an  engagement  is  only 


THE    OFFICERS    AS    POLITICIANS      227 

binding  so  far  as  you  think  it  honest;  yet  the  pith  of 
your  case  against  the  Parhament  is  that  in  ten  points 
it  has  violated  engagements." 

In  a  great  heat  Rainborough,  hkewise  an  Uhra,  fol- 
lowed. You  talk  of  the  danger  of  divisions,  but  if 
things  are  honest,  why  should  they  divide  us?  You 
talk  of  difficulties,  but  if  difficulties  be  all,  how  was  it 
that  we  ever  began  the  war,  or  dared  to  look  an  enemy 
in  the  face?  You  talk  of  innovation  upon  the  old 
laws  which  made  us  a  kingdom  from  old  time.  *'But 
if  writings  be  true,  there  hath  been  many  scufHings 
between  the  honest  men  of  England  and  those  that 
have  tyrannised  over  them;  and  if  people  find  that  old 
laws  do  not  suit  freemen  as  they  are,  what  reason  can 
exist  why  old  laws  should  not  be  changed  to  new?" 

According  to  the  want  of  debate,  Rainborough's  heat 
kindled  Cromwell.  His  stroke  is  not  as  clean  as  Ire- 
ton's,  but  there  is  in  his  words  a  glow  of  the  sort  that 
goes  deeper  than  the  sharpest  dialectic.  After  a  rather 
cumbrous  effort  to  state  the  general  case  for  opportun- 
ism, he  closes  in  the  manner  of  a  famous  word  of 
Danton's,  with  a  passionate  declaration  against  divi- 
sions :  "Rather  than  I  would  have  this  kingdom  break 
in  pieces  before  some  company  of  men  be  united  to- 
gether to  a  settlement,  I  will  withdraw  myself  from  the 
army  to-morrow  and  lay  down  my  commission ;  I  will 
perish  before  I  hinder  it." 

Colonel  Gofife  then  proposed  that  there  should  be  a 
public  prayer-meeting,  and  it  was  agreed  that  the 
morning  of  the  next  day  should  be  given  to  prayer,  and 
the  afternoon  to  business.  The  lull,  edifying  as  it 
was,  did  not  last.  No  storms  are  ever  harder  to  allay 
than  those  that  spring  up  in  abstract  discussions. 
Wildman  returned  to  the  charge  with  law  of  nature, 
and  the  paramount  claim  of  the  people's  rights  and 


228  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

liberties  over  all  engagements  and  over  all  authority. 
Hereupon  Ireton  flamed  out  just  as  Burke  might  have 
Hamed  out :  "There  is  venom  and  poison  in  all  this.  I 
know  of  no  other  foundation  of  right  and  justice  but 
that  we  should  keep  covenant  with  one  another. 
Covenants  freely  entered  into  must  be  kept.  Take 
that  away,  and  what  right  has  a  man  to  anything — to 
his  estate  of  lands  or  to  his  goods?  You  talk  of  law 
of  nature !  By  the  law  of  nature  you  have  no  more 
right  to  this  land  or  anything  else  than  I  have." 

Here  the  shrewd  man  who  is  a  figure  in  all  public 
meetings,  ancient  and  modern,  who  has  no  relish  for 
general  argument,  broke  in  with  the  apt  remark  that  if 
they  went  on  no  quicker  with  their  business,  the  king 
would  come  and  say  who  should  be  hanged  first.  Ire- 
ton,  however,  always  was  a  man  of  the  last  word,  and 
he  stood  to  his  point  with  acuteness  and  fluency,  but 
too  much  in  the  vein  styled  academic.  He  turns  to 
the  question  that  was  to  give  so  much  fuel  to  contro- 
versy for  a  hundred  years  to  come — what  obedience 
men  owe  to  constituted  authority.  Cromwell's  con- 
clusion marked  his  usual  urgency  for  unity,  but  he 
stated  it  with  an  uncompromising  breadth  that  is  both 
new  and  extremely  striking.  For  his  part,  he  was 
anxious  that  nobody  should  suppose  that  he  and  his 
friends  were  wedded  and  glued  to  forms  of  govern- 
ment. He  wished  them  to  understand  that  he  was  not 
committed  to  any  principle  of  legislative  power  outside 
the  Commons  of  the  kingdom  or  to  any  other  doctrine 
than  that  the  foundation  and  supremacy  is  in  the  peo- 
ple. With  that  vain  cry  so  often  heard  through  his- 
tory from  Pericles  downward,  from  the  political 
leader  to  the  roaring  winds  and  waves  of  party  passion, 
he  appeals  to  them  not  to  meet  as  two  contrary  parties, 
but  as  men  desirous  to  satisfy  each  other.     This  is  the 


From  the  portrait  by  William  Dobson  at  Hincblnbrook  House, 
by  permission  of  the  Earl  of  Sandwich. 

GENERAL  HENRY  IRETON. 


THE    OFFICERS    AS    POLITICIANS      229 

clue  to  Cromwell.  Only  unity  could  save  them  from 
the  tremendous  forces  ranged  against  them  all ;  divi- 
sion must  destroy  them.  Rather  than  imperil  unity,  he 
would  go  over  with  the  whole  of  his  strength  to  the 
extreme  men  in  his  camp,  even  though  he  might  not 
think  their  way  the  best.  The  army  was  the  one  thing 
now  left  standing.  The  church  was  shattered.  Par- 
liament was  paralyzed.  Against  the  king  Cromwell 
had  now  written  in  his  heart  the  judgment  written  of 
old  on  the  wall  against  Belshazzar.  If  the  army  broke, 
then  no  anchor  w'ould  hold,  and  once  and  for  all  the 
cause  was  lost. 

The  next  day  the  prayer-meeting  had  cleared  the  air. 
After  some  civil  words  between  Cromwell  and  Rain- 
borough,  Ireton  made  them  another  eloquent  speech, 
where,  among  many  other  things,  he  lays  bare  the 
spiritual  basis  on  which  powerful  and  upright  men  like 
Cromwell  rested  practical  policy.  Some  may  now  be 
shocked,  as  were  many  at  that  day,  by  the  assumption 
that  little  transient  events  are  the  true  measure  of  the 
divine  purpose.  Others  may  feel  the  full  force  of  all 
the  standing  arguments  ever  since  Lucretius,  that  the 
nature  of  the  higher  powers  is  too  far  above  mortal 
things  to  be  either  pleased  or  angry  with  us.^  History 
is  only  intelligible  if  we  place  ourselves  at  the  point  of 
view  of  the  actor  who  makes  it.  Ireton  moving  clean 
away  from  the  position  that  he  had  taken  up  the  day 
before,  as  if  Oliver  had  wrestled  with  him  in  the  inter- 
vening night,  now  goes  on :  "It  is  not  to  me  so  much  as 
the  vainest  or  slightest  thing  you  can  imagine,  whether 
there  be  a  king  in  England  or  no,  or  whether  there  be 
lords  in  England  or  no.  For  whatever  I  find  the  work 
of  God  tending  to,  I  should  quietly  submit  to  it.  If  God 
saw  it  good  to  destroy  not  only  kings  and  lords,  but  all 

iNec  bene  promeritis  capitur,  nee  tangitur  ira,  ii.  651. 


230  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

distinctions  of  degrees — nay,  if  it  go  further,  to  de- 
stroy all  property — if  I  see  the  hand  of  God  in  it,  I 
hope  I  shall  with  quietness  acquiesce  and  submit  to  it 
and  not  resist  it."  In  other  words,  do  not  persuade 
him  that  Lleaven  is  with  the  Levelers,  and  he  turns 
Leveler  himself.  Ireton  was  an  able  and  whole- 
hearted man.  but  we  can  see  how  his  doctrine  might 
offer  a  decorous  mask  to  the  hypocrite  and  the  waiter 
upon  Providence. 

Colonel  Goffe  told  them  that  he  had  been  kept  awake 
a  long  while  in  the  night  by  certain  thoughts,  and  he 
felt  a  weight  upon  his  spirit  until  he  had  imparted 
them.  They  turned  much  upon  antichrist,  and  upon 
the  passage  in  the  Book  of  Revelation  which  describes 
how  the  kings  of  the  earth  have  given  up  their  powers 
to  the  Beast,  as  in  sooth  the  kings  of  the  earth  have 
given  up  their  powers  to  the  Pope.  Nobody  followed 
Goffe  into  these  high  concerns,  but  they  speedily  set  to 
work  upon  the  casual  questions,  so  familiar  to  our- 
selves, of  electoral  franchise  and  re-distribution  of  seats 
— and  these  two  for  that  matter  have  sometimes  hidden 
a  mystery  of  iniquity  of  their  own. 

"Is  the  meaning  of  your  proposal,"  said  Ireton, 
"that  every  man  is  to  have  an  equal  voice  in  the  elec- 
tion of  representors?"  "Yes,"  replied  Rainborough ; 
"the  poorest  he  that  is  in  England  hath  a  life  to  live 
as  much  as  the  greatest  he,  and  a  man  is  not  bound  to 
a  government  that  he  has  not  had  a  voice  to  put  himself 
tmder."  Then  the  lawyer  rose  up  in  Ireton.  "So  you 
stand,"  he  says,  "not  on  civil  right  but  on  natural 
right,  and,  for  my  part,  I  think  that  no  right  at  all. 
Nobody  has  a  right  to  a  share  in  disposing  the  affairs 
of  this  kingdom  unless  he  has  a  permanent  fixed  in- 
terest in  the  kingdom."  "But  I  find  nothing  in  the 
law  of  God,"  Rainborough  retorts,  "that  a  lord  shall 


THE   OFFICERS   AS    POLmCIANS     231 

choose  twenty  burgesses,  and  a  gentleman  only  two, 
and  a  poor  man  none.  Why  did  Almighty  God  give 
men  reason,  if  they  should  not  use  it  in  a  voting  way, 
unless  they  have  an  estate  of  forty  shillings  a  year?" 
"But  then,"  says  Ireton,  "if  you  are  on  natural  right, 
show  me  what  difference  lies  between  a  right  to  vote 
and  a  right  to  subsistence."  "Every  man  is  naturally 
free,"  cries  one.  "How  comes  it,"  cries  another,  "that 
one  free-born  Englishman  has  property  and  his  neigh- 
bor has  none?  Why  has  not  a  younger  son  as  much 
right  in  the  inheritance  as  the  eldest?"  So  the  modern 
reader  finds  himself  in  the  thick  of  controversies 
that  have  shaken  the  world  from  that  far-off  day  to 
this. 

In  such  a  crisis  as  that  upon  which  England  was 
now  entering,  it  is  not  the  sounder  reasoning  that  de- 
cides ;  it  is  passions,  interests,  outside  events,  and  that 
something  vague,  undefined,  curious  almost  to  mys- 
tery, that  in  bodies  of  men  is  called  political  instinct. 
All  these  things  together  seemed  to  sweep  Cromwell 
and  Ireton  off  their  feet.  The  Levelers  beat  them,  as 
Cromwell  would  assuredly  have  foreseen  must  happen, 
if  he  had  enjoyed  modern  experiences  of  the  law  of 
revolutionary  storms.  Manhood  suffrage  was  carried, 
though  Cromwell  had  been  against  it  as  "tending  very 
much  to  anarchy,"  and  though  Ireton  had  pressed  to 
the  uttermost  the  necessity  of  limiting  the  vote  to  men 
with  fixed  interests.  Cromwell  now^  said  that  he  was 
not  glued  to  any  particular  form  of  government.  Only 
a  fortnight  before  he  had  told  the  House  of  Commons 
that  it  was  matter  of  urgency  to  restore  the  authority 
of  monarchy,  and  Ireton  had  told  the  council  of  the 
army  that  there  must  be  king  and  lords  in  any  scheme 
that  would  do  for  him.  In  July  Cromwell  had  called 
out  that  the  question  is  what  is  good  for  the  people, 


232  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

not  what  pleases  them.  Now  he  raises  the  balancing 
consideration  that  if  you  do  not  build  the  fabric  of  gov- 
ernment on  consent  it  will  not  stand.  Therefore  you 
must  think  of  what  pleases  people,  or  else  they  will  not 
endure  what  is  good  for  them.  "If  I  could  see  a  vis- 
ible presence  of  the  people,  either  by  subscription  or  by 
numbers,  that  would  satisfy  me."  Cromwell  now 
(November)  says  that  if  they  were  free  to  do  as  they 
pleased  they  would  set  up  neither  king  nor  lords. 
Further,  they  would  not  keep  either  king  or  lords,  if  to 
do  so  were  a  danger  to  the  public  interest.  Was  it  a 
danger?  Some  thought  so,  others  thought  not.  For 
his  own  part,  he  concurred  with  those  who  believed 
that  there  could  be  no  safety  with  a  king  and  lords,  and 
even  concurred  with  them  in  thinking  that  God  would 
probably  destroy  them ;  yet  "God  can  do  it  without 
necessitating  us  to  a  thing  which  is  scandalous,  and 
therefore  let  those  that  are  of  that  mind  wait  upon  God 
for  such  a  way  where  the  thing  may  be  done  without 
sin  and  without  scandal  too." 

This  was  undoubtedly  a  remarkable  change  of 
Oliver's  mind,  and  the  balanced,  hesitating  phrases  in 
which  it  is  expressed  hardly  seem  to  fit  a  conclusion 
so  momentous.  A  man  who,  even  with  profound  sin- 
cerity, sets  out  shifting  conclusions  of  policy  in  the 
language  of  unction,  must  take  the  consequences,  in- 
cluding the  chance  of  being  suspected  of  duplicity  by 
embittered  adversaries.  These  weeks  must  have  been 
to  Oliver  the  most  poignant  hours  of  the  whole  strug- 
gle, and  more  than  ever  he  must  have  felt  the  looming 
hazards  of  his  own  maxim  that  "in  yielding  there  is 
wisdom." 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE    KING  S    FLIGHT 


THE  Strain  of  things  had  now  become  too  intense  to 
continue.  On  the  evening  of  the  day  when  Harri- 
son was  declaiming  against  the  man  of  blood  (Novem- 
ber 1 1 ) ,  the  king  disappeared  from  Hampton  Court. 
That  his  life  was  in  peril  from  some  of  the  more  vio- 
lent of  the  soldiers  at  Putney  half  a  dozen  miles  away, 
there  can  be  no  doubt,  though  circumstantial  stories  of 
plots  for  his  assassination  do  not  seem  to  be  proved. 
Cromwell  wrote  to  Whalley,  who  had  the  king  under 
his  guard,  that  rumors  were  abroad  of  an  attempt  upon 
the  king's  life,  and  if  any  such  thing  should  be  done  it 
would  be  accounted  a  most  horrid  act.  The  story  that 
Cromwell  cunningly  frightened  Charles  away,  in  order 
to  make  his  own  manoeuvers  run  smoother,  was  long  a 
popular  belief,  but  all  the  probabilities  are  decisively 
against  it.  ,  Even  at  that  eleventh  hour,  as  we  see  from 
his  language  a  few  days  before  the  king's  flight,  Crom- 
well had  no  faith  that  a  settlement  was  possible  with- 
out the  king,  little  as  he  could  have  hoped  from  any 
settlement  made  with  him.  Whither  could  it  have 
been  for  Cromwell's  interest  that  the  king  should  be- 
take himself?  Not  to  London,  where  a  Royalist  tide 
was  flowing  pretty  strongly.  Still  less  toward  the 
Scottish  border,  where  Charles  would  begin  a  new  civil 
war  in  a  position  most  favorable  to  himself.     Flight 

233 


234  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

to  France  was  the  only  move  on  the  king's  part  that 
might  have  mended  Cromwell's  situation.  He  could 
have  done  no  more  effective  mischief  from  France  than 
the  queen  had  done;  on  the  other  hand,  his  flight  would 
have  been  treated  as  an  abdication,  with  as  convenient 
results  as  followed  one  and  forty  years  later  from  the 
flight  of  James  IL 

We  now  know  that  Charles  fled  from  Hampton 
Court  because  he  had  been  told  by  the  Scottish  envoys, 
with  whom  he  was  then  secretly  dealing,  as  well  as 
from  other  quarters,  that  his  life  was  in  danger,  but 
without  any  more  fixed  designs  than  when  he  had 
fled  from  Oxford  in  April  of  the  previous  year.  He 
seems  to  have  arranged  to  take  ship  from  South- 
ampton Water,  but  the  vessel  never  came,  and  he 
sought  refuge  in  Carisbrooke  Castle  in  the  Isle  of 
Wight  (November  14,  1647).  Here  he  was  soon  no 
less  a  prisoner  than  he  had  been  at  Hampton  Court. 
As  strongly  as  ever  he  even  now  felt  he  held  the  win- 
ning cards  in  his  hands.  "Sir,"  he  had  said  to  Fair- 
fax after  his  removal  from  Holmby,  "I  have  as  good 
an  interest  in  the  army  as  you."  Nothing  had  hap- 
pened since  then  to  shake  this  conviction,  and  un- 
doubtedly there  was  in  the  army,  as  there  was  in 
Parliament,  in  the  City,  and  all  other  considerable 
aggregates  of  the  population,  a  lively  and  definite  hope 
that  royal  authority  would  be  restored.  Beyond  all 
this,  Charles  confidently  anticipated  that  he  could  rely 
upon  the  military  force  of  the  counter-revolution  in 
Scotland. 

Cromwell  knew  all  these  favoring  chances  as  vividly 
as  the  king  himself,  and  he  knew  better  than  Charles 
the  terrible  perils  of  jealousy  and  dissension  in  the  only 
force  upon  which  the  cause  could  rely.  "For  many 
months,"  says  Fairfax,  "all  public  councils  were  turned 


THE    KING'S    FLIGHT  235 

into  private  juntos,  which  begot  greater  emulations 
and  jealousies  among  them."  Cromwell  was  the 
object  of  attack  from  many  sides.  He  was  accused  of 
boldly  avowing  such  noxious  principles  as  these:  that 
every  single  man  is  judge  of  what  is  just  and  right  as 
to  the  good  and  ill  of  a  kingdom ;  that  the  interest  of 
the  kingdom  is  the  interest  of  the  honest  men  in  it,  and 
those  only  are  honest  men  who  go  with  him ;  that  it  is 
lawful  to  pass  through  any  forms  of  government  for 
the  accomplishment  of  his  ends ;  that  it  is  lawful  to 
play  the  kna^'e  with  a  knave.  This  about  the  knave 
was  only  Cromwell's  blunt  way  of  putting  the  scrip- 
tural admonition  to  be  wise  as  serpents,  or  Bacon's 
saying  that  the  wise  man  must  use  the  good  and  guard 
himself  against  the  wicked.  He  was  surrounded  by 
danger.  He  knew  that  he  was  himself  in  danger  of 
impeachment,  and  he  had  heard  for  the  first  time 
of  one  of  those  designs  for  his  own  assassination,  of 
which  he  w^as  to  know  so  much  more  in  days  to  come. 
He  had  been  for  five  years  at  too  close  quarters  with 
death  in  many  dire  shapes  to  cjuail  at  the  thought  of 
it  any  more  than  King  Charles  cjuailed. 

Cromwell  in  later  days  described  1648  as  the  most 
memorable  year  that  the  nation  ever  saw.  "So  many 
insurrections,  invasions,  secret  designs,  open  and  pub- 
lic attempts,  all  quashed,  in  so  short  a  time,  and  this  by 
the  very  signal  appearance  of  God  himself."  The  first 
effect,  he  says,  was  to  prepare  for  bringing  oft'enders 
to  punishment  and  for  a  change  of  government ;  but 
the  great  thing  was  "the  climax  of  the  treaty  with  the 
king,  whereby  they  would  have  put  into  his  hands  all 
that  we  had  engaged  for,  and  all  our  security  should 
have  been  a  little  piece  of  paper."  Dangers  both  seen 
and  unseen  rapidly  thickened.  The  king,  while  re- 
fusing his  assent  to  a  new  set  of  propositions  tendered 


236  OLR'ER  CROMWELL 

to  him  by  the  ParHament.  had  secretly  entered  into  an 
engagement  with  commissioners  from  the  Scots  (De- 
cember 26,  1647).  Here  we  have  one  of  the  cardinal 
incidents  of  the  struggle,  like  the  case  of  the  Five 
Members,  or  the  closing  of  the  negotiations  with 
Cromwell.  By  this  sinister  instrument,  the  Scots  de- 
claring against  the  unjust  proceedings  of  the  English 
houses,  were  to  send  an  army  into  England  for  the 
preservation  and  establishment  of  religion,  and  the 
restoration  of  all  the  rights  and  revenues  of  the  crown. 
In  return  the  king  was  to  guarantee  Presbytery  in 
England  for  three  years,  with  liberty  to  himself  to  use 
his  own  form  of  dixine  service;  but  the  opinions  and 
practices  of  the  Independents  were  to  be  suppressed. 
That  is,  Presbyterian  Scot  and  English  Royalist  were 
to  join  in  arms  against  the  Parliament,  on  the  basis  of 
the  restoration  of  the  king's  claims,  the  suppression  of 
Sectaries,  and  the  establishment  of  Presbytery  for 
three  years  and  no  longer,  unless  the  king  should 
agree  to  an  extension  of  the  time.  This  clandestine 
covenant  for  kindling  afresh  the  flames  of  civil  war 
was  wrapped  up  in  lead,  and  buried  in  the  garden  at 
Carisbrooke. 

The  secret  must  have  been  speedily  guessed. 
Little  more  than  a  week  after  the  treaty  had  been 
signed,  a  proposal  was  made  in  the  Commons  to  im- 
peach the  king,  and  Cromwell  supported  it  (not  neces- 
sarily intending  more  than  deposition)  on  the  ground 
that  the  king,  "while  he  professed  with  all  solemnity 
that  he  referred  himself  wholly  to  the  Parliament,  had 
at  the  same  time  secret  treaties  with  the  Scots  com- 
missioners how  he  might  embroil  the  nation  in  a  new 
war  and  destroy  the  Parliament."  Impeachment  was 
dropped,  but  a  motion  was  carried  against  holding 
further    communications    with    the    king     (January, 


From  a  print  in  the  British  Museum. 
SIR    MARMADUKE    LANGDALE,  FIRST   LORD    LAXGDALE. 


THE    KING'S    FLIGHT  237 

1648),  thus  in  substance  and  for  the  time  openly  bring- 
ing monarchy  to  an  end.  From  the  end  of  1647,  ^^^^ 
all  through  1648,  designs  for  bringing  the  king  to  jus- 
tice which  had  long  existed  among  a  few  of  the  ex- 
treme agitators,  extended  to  the  leading  officers.  The 
committee  of  both  kingdoms,  in  which  Scots  and  Eng- 
lish had  united  for  executive  purposes,  was  at  once 
dissolved,  and  the  new  executive  body,  now  exclusively 
English,  found  itself  confronted  by  Scotland,  Ireland, 
and  Wales,  all  in  active  hostility,  and  by  an  England 
smoldering  in  various  different  stages  of  disaffec- 
tion. A  portion  of  the  fleet  was  already  in  revolt,  and 
no  one  knew  how  far  the  mutiny  might  go.  All  must 
depend  upon  the  army,  and  for  the  Presbyterian  party 
the  success  of  the  army  would  be  the  victory  of  a 
master  and  an  enemy. 

At  the  moment  of  the  flight  to  Carisbrooke,  Crom- 
well had  sternly  stamped  out  an  incipient  revolt.  At 
a  rendezvous  near  Ware  two  regiments  appeared  on 
the  field  without  leave,  and  bearing  disorderly  ensigns 
in  their  hats.  Cromwell  rode  among  them,  bade  them 
remove  the  mutinous  symbol,  arrested  the  ringleaders 
of  those  who  refused  to  obey,  and  after  a  drumhead 
court-martial  at  which  three  of  the  offenders  were  con- 
demned to  death,  ordered  the  three  to  throw  dice  for 
their  lives,  and  he  who  lost  was  instantly  shot  ( Novem- 
ber 15,  1647).  Though  not  more  formidable  than  a 
breakdown  of  military  discipline  must  have  proved, 
the  political  difficulties  were  much  less  simple  to  deal 
with.  Cromwell  had  definitely  given  up  all  hope  of 
coming  to  terms  with  the  king.  On  the  other  hand  he 
was  never  a  Republican  himself,  and  his  sagacity  told 
him  that  the  country  would  never  accept  a  government 
founded  on  what  to  him  were  Republican  chimeras. 
Every  moment  the  tide  of  reaction  was  rising.     From 


238  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

Christmas  (1647)  ^"^1  ^^^  through  the  spring  there 
were  unmistakable  signs  of  popular  discontent.  Puri- 
tan suppression  of  old  merrymakings  was  growing  too 
hard  to  bear,  for  the  old  Adam  was  not  yet  driven  out 
of  the  free-born  Englishman  by  either  law  or  gospel. 
None  of  the  sections  into  which  opinion  was  divided 
had  confidence  in  the  Parliament.  The  rumors  of 
bringing  the  king  to  trial  and  founding  a  military  re- 
public, perturbed  many  and  incensed  most  in  every 
class.  Violent  riots  broke  out  in  the  City.  In  the 
home  counties  disorderly  crowds  shouted  for  God  and 
King  Charles.  Royalist  risings  were  planned  in  half 
the  counties  in  England,  north,  west,  south,  and  even 
east.  The  Royalist  press  was  active  and  audacious. 
In  South  Wales  the  royal  standard  had  been  unfurled, 
the  population  eagerly  rallied  to  it,  and  the  strong 
places  were  in  Royalist  hands.  In  Scotland  Hamilton 
had  got  the  best  of  Argyll  and  the  Covenanting  Ultras, 
in  spite  of  the  bitter  and  tenacious  resistance  of  the 
clergy  to  every  design  for  supporting  a  sovereign  who 
W' as  champion  of  Episcopacy ;  and  in  April  the  Parlia- 
ment at  Edinburgh  had  ordered  an  army  to  be  raised 
to  defend  the  king  and  the  Covenant.  In  face  of  pub- 
lic difficulties  so  overwhelming,  Cromwell  was  person- 
ally weakened  by  the  deep  discredit  into  which  he  had 
fallen  among  the  zealots  in  his  own  camp,  as  the  result 
of  his  barren  attempt  to  bring  the  king  to  reason.  Of 
all  the  dark  moments  of  his  life  this  was  perhaps  the 
darkest. 

He  tried  a  sociable  conference  between  the  two 
ecclesiastical  factions,  including  laymen  and  ministers 
of  each,  but  each  went  away  as  stiff  and  as  high  as 
they  had  come.  Then  he  tried  a  conference  between 
the  leading  men  of  the  army  and  the  extreme  men  of 
the  Commonwealth,  and  they  had  a  fruitless  argument 


THE    KING'S    FLIGHT  239 

on  the  hoary  theme,  dating  ahnost  from  the  birth  of 
the  western  world,  of  the  relative  merits  of  monarchy, 
aristocracy,  and  democracy.  Cromwell  wisely  de- 
clined to  answer  this  threadbare  riddle,  only  maintain- 
ing that  any  form  of  government  might  be  good  in 
itself  or  for  us,  "according  as  Providence  should  di- 
rect us" — the  formula  of  mystic  days  for  modern 
opportunism.  The  others  replied  by  passages  from 
the  first  book  of  Samuel,  from  Kings,  and  Judges.  We 
cannot  wonder  that  Cromwell,  thinking  of  the  ruin 
that  he  saw  hanging  imminent  in  thunder-clouds  over 
cause  and  kingdom,  at  last  impatiently  ended  the  idle 
talk  by  flinging  a  cushion  at  Ludlow's  head  and  run- 
ning off  down  the  stairs. 

What  was  called  the  second  civil  war  was  now  in- 
evitable. The  curtain  was  rising  for  the  last,  most 
dubious,  most  exciting,  and  most  memorable  act  of  the 
long  drama  in  which  Charles  had  played  his  leading 
and  ill-starred  part.  Even  in  the  army  men  were  "in 
a  low,  weak,  divided,  perplexed  condition."'  Some 
were  so  depressed  by  the  refusal  of  the  nation  to  follow 
their  intentions  for  its  good,  that  they  even  thought  of 
laying  down  their  arms  and  returning  to  private  life. 
Thus  distracted  and  cast  down,  their  deep  mystic  faith 
drew  them  to  the  oracles  of  prayer,  and  at  Windsor  in 
April  they  began  their  solemn  ofifice,  searching  out 
what  iniquities  of  theirs  had  provoked  the  Lord  of 
Hosts  to  bring  down  such  grievous  perplexities  upon 
them.  Cromwell  was  among  the  most  fervid,  and 
again  and  again  they  all  melted  in  bitter  tears.  Their 
sin  was  borne  home  to  them.  They  had  turned  aside 
from  the  path  of  simplicity,  and  stepped,  to  their  hurt, 
into  the  paths  of  policy.  The  root  of  the  evil  was 
found  out  in  those  cursed  carnal  conferences  with  the 
king  and  his  party,  to  which  their  own  conceited  wis- 


240  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

dom  and  want  of  faith  had  prompted  them  the  year 
before.  And  so,  after  the  meeting  had  lasted  for  three 
whole  days,  with  prayer,  exhortations,  preaching, 
seeking,  groans,  and  weeping,  they  came  without  a 
dissenting  voice  to  an  agreement  that  it  was  the  duty 
of  the  day  to  go  out  and  fight  against  those  potent  ene- 
mies rising  on  every  hand  against  them,  and  then  it 
would  be  their  further  duty,  if  ever  the  Lord  should 
bring  them  back  in  peace,  to  call  Charles  Stuart,  that 
man  of  blood,  to  an  account  for  all  the  blood  that  he 
had  shed,  and  all  the  mischief  he  had  done  against  the 
Lord's  cause  and  people  in  these  poor  nations.  When 
this  vehement  hour  of  exaltation  had  passed  away, 
many  of  the  warlike  saints,  we  may  be  sure,  including 
Oliver  himself,  admitted  back  into  their  minds  some  of 
those  politic  misgivings  for  which  they  had  just  shown 
such  passionate  contrition.  But  to  the  great  majority 
it  was  the  inspiration  of  the  Windsor  meetings,  and  the 
directness  and  simplicity  of  their  conclusion,  that  gave 
such  fiery  energy  to  the  approaching  campaign,  and 
kept  alive  the  fierce  resolve  to  exact  retribution  to  the 
uttermost  when  the  time  appointed  should  bring  the 
arch-delinquent  within  their  grasp. 


CHAPTER  V 

SECOND   CIVIL   WAR CROMWELL   AT    PRESTON 

EVEN  as  the  hour  of  doom  drew  steadily  nearer, 
the  prisoner  at  Carisbrooke  might  well  believe 
that  the  rebels  and  traitors  were  hastening  to  their 
ruin.  The  political  paradox  grew  more  desperate  as 
the  days  went  on,  and  to  a  paradox  Charles  looked  for 
his  deliverance.  It  is  worth  examining.  The  Par- 
liamentary majority  hoped  for  the  establishment  of 
Presbytery  and  the  restoration  of  the  king,  and  so  did 
the  Scottish  invaders.  Yet  the  English  Presbyterians 
were  forced  into  hostility  to  the  invaders  though  both 
were  declared  Covenanters,  because  Scottish  victory 
would  mean  the  defeat  of  the  Parliament.  The  Scot- 
tish Presbyterians  were  hostile  or  doubtful,  because 
they  found  their  army  in  incongruous  alliance  with 
English  cavaliers.  The  Scots  under  Hamilton  were 
to  fight  for  the  Covenant;  their  English  confederates, 
under  Langdale,  were  openly  fighting  for  the  antago- 
nistic cause  of  church  and  king,  and  refused  point- 
blank  to  touch  the  Covenant.  If  the  Scotch  invaders 
should  win,  they  would  win  with  the  aid  of  purely 
Royalist  support  in  the  field,  and  purely  Royalist  sym- 
pathy in  the  nation.  The  day  on  which  they  should 
enter  London  would  be  the  day  of  unqualified  triumph 
for  the  king,  of  humiliation  for  the  English  Parlia- 
ment, and  of  final  defeat  both  for  the  great  cause  and 
i6  241 


242  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

the  bra\e  men  who  for  nearly  twenty  years  had  toiled 
and  bled  for  it.  For  whose  sake,  then,  was  the  Pres- 
byterian Royalist  at  Westminster  to  fast  and  pray?  It 
was  the  sorest  dilemma  of  his  life. 

If  this  was  the  supreme  crisis  of  the  rebellion,  it 
was  the  supreme  moment  for  Cromwell.  On  May  i, 
1648.  by  order  of  Fairfax  and  the  council  of  war,  he 
rode  off  to  South  Wales  to  take  command  of  the  Par- 
liamentary forces  there.  He  carried  in  his  breast  the 
unquenched  assurance  that  he  went  forth  like  Moses  or 
like  Joshua,  the  instrument  of  the  purposes  of  the  Most 
High ;  but  it  was  not  in  his  temperament  to  forget  that 
he  might  peradventure  be  misreading  the  divine  coun- 
sels, and  well  he  knew  that  if  his  confidence  were  not 
made  good,  he  was  leaving  relentless  foes  in  the  Parlia- 
ment behind  him,  and  that  if  he  failed  in  the  hazardous 
duty  that  had  been  put  upon  him,  destruction  sure  and 
unsparing  awaited  both  his  person  and  his  cause. 
While  Cromwell  thus  went  west,  Fairfax  himself  con- 
ducted a  vigorous  and  decisive  campaign  in  Kent  and 
Essex,  and  then  (June  13)  sat  down  before  Colchester, 
into  which  a  strong  body  of  Royalists  had  thrown 
themselves,  and  where  they  made  a  long  and  stubborn 
defense.  Lambert,  with  a  small  force,  was  despatched 
north  to  meet  Langdale  and  the  northern  cavaliers,  and 
to  check  the  advance  of  the  Scots.  Here  (July  8) 
Hamilton  crossed  the  border  at  the  head  of  ten  thou- 
sand men,  ill  equipped  and  ill  trained,  but  counting  on 
others  to  follow,  and  on  the  aid  of  three  thousand 
more  under  Langdale.  Three  days  later,  as  it  hap- 
pened. Cromwell's  operations  in  Wales  came  to  a  suc- 
cessful end  with  the  capture  of  Pembroke  Castle.  He 
instantly  set  his  face  northward,  and  by  the  end  of  the 
month  reached  Leicester.  The  marches  w^ere  long 
and  severe.     Shoes  and  stockings  were  worn  out,  pay 


THE   SECOND   CIVIL   WAR  243 

was  many  months  in  arrears,  plunder  was  sternly  for- 
bidden, and  not  a  few  of  the  gallant  warriors  tramped 
barefoot  from  Wales  into  Yorkshire.  With  fire  in 
their  hearts,  these  tattered  veterans  carried  with  them 
the  issue  of  the  whole  long  struggle  and  the  destinies 
of  the  three  kingdoms.  The  fate  of  the  king,  the 
power  of  Parliament,  the  future  of  constitutions,  laws, 
and  churches,  were  known  to  hang  upon  the  account 
which  these  few  thousand  men  should  be  able  to  give 
of  the  invaders  from  over  the  northern  border.  If  the 
Parliament  had  lost  Naseby,  the  war  might  still  have 
gone  on,  whereas  if  Hamilton  should  now  reach  Lon- 
don, the  king  would  be  master  for  good. 

It  was  on  August  12th  that  Cromwell  joined  Lam- 
bert on  the  high  fells  between  Leeds  and  York,  the 
united  force  amounting  to  some  eight  thousand  men. 
Still  uncertain  whether  his  enemy  would  strike  through 
Yorkshire  or  follow  a  western  line  through  Lancashire 
and  Wales,  he  planted  himself  here  so  as  to  command 
either  course.  Scouts  brought  the  intelligence  that 
the  Scots  and  Langdale's  force,  afterward  estimated 
by  Oliver  at  twenty-one  thousand  men,  were  marching 
southward  by  way  of  Lancashire  and  making  for  Lon- 
don. As  Cromwell  knew,  to  hinder  this  was  life  and 
death,  and  to  engage  the  enemy  to  fight  was  his  busi- 
ness at  all  cost.  Marching  through  the  Craven 
country  down  the  valley  of  the  Ribble,  he  groped  his 
way  until  he  found  himself  in  touch  with  the  enemy's 
left  flank  at  Preston.  Hamilton  was  no  soldier:  his 
counsels  were  distracted  by  jealousy  and  division,  na- 
tional, political,  and  religious,  his  scouting  was  so  ill 
done  that  he  did  not  know  that  any  serious  force  was 
in  his  neighborhood ;  and  his  line  extended  over  seven 
leagues  from  north  to  south,  Preston  about  the  center, 
and  the  van  toward  Wigan,  with  the  Ribble  between 


244  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

van  and  rear.  For  three  days  of  hard  fighting  the 
battles,  named  from  Preston,  lasted.  That  they  were 
the  result  of  a  deliberately  preconceived  flank  attack, 
ingeniously  planned  from  the  outset,  is  no  longer  be- 
lieved. Things  are  hardly  ever  so  in  war,  the  military 
critics  say.  As  in  politics,  Oliver  in  the  field  watched 
the  progress  of  events,  alert  for  any  chance,  and  ever 
ready  to  strike  on  the  instant  when  he  knew  that  the 
blow  would  tell.  The  general  idea  in  what  was  now 
done  was  that  it  would  be  better  to  cut  off  Hamilton 
from  Scotland  than  directly  to  bar  his  advance  to 
London. 

The  first  encounter  at  Preston  (August  17)  was  the 
hardest,  when  English  fell  upon  English.  For  four 
fierce  hours  Langdale  and  his  north-country  Royalists 
offered  "a  very  stiff  resistance"  to  the  valor  and  reso- 
lution of  Cromwell's  best  troops,  and  at  this  point  the 
Cromwellians  were  superior  in  numbers.  At  last  the 
Royalists  broke;  the  survivors  scattered  north  and 
south,  and  were  no  more  heard  of.  Next  day  it  was 
the  turn  of  Hamilton  and  his  Scots.  With  difiiculty 
they  had  got  across  the  Ribble  overnight,  wet,  weary, 
and  hungry,  and  Oliver's  troopers  were  too  weary  to 
follow  them.  At  daybreak  the  Scots  pressed  on,  the 
Ironsides  at  their  heels  in  dogged  pursuit,  killing  and 
taking  prisoners  all  the  way,  though  they  were  only 
fifty-five  hundred  foot  and  horse  against  twice  as 
large  a  force  of  Scots.  "By  night,"  says  Oliver,  "we 
were  very  dirty  and  weary,  having  marched  twelve 
miles  of  such  ground  as  I  never  rode  in  my  life,  the 
day  being  very  wet."  On  the  third  day  (August  19) 
the  contest  went  fiercely  forward.  At  Winwick  the 
Scots  made  a  resolute  stand  for  many  hours,  and  for 
a  time  the  English  gave  way.  Then  they  recovered, 
and  chased  the   Scots  three  miles   into   Warrington. 


From  the  original  portrait  at  Hamilton  Palace. 
JAMES,  FIRST   DUKE   OF   HAMILTON. 


THE    SECOND    CIVIL   WAR  245 

Hamilton  lost  heart,  and  directed  Baillie  to  surrender 
his  infantry  to  Cromwell,  while  he  himself  marched 
on  with  some  three  thousand  horse  over  the  Cheshire 
border  into  Delamere  Forest.  'Tf  I  had  a  thousand 
horse,"  wrote  Cromwell,  "that  could  but  trot  thirty 
miles.  I  should  not  doubt  but  to  give  a  very  good  ac- 
count of  them;  but,  truly,  we  are  so  harassed  and 
haggled  out  in  this  business  that  we  are  not  able  to  do 
more  than  walk  at  an  easy  pace  after  them.  They  are 
the  miserablest  party  that  ever  was;  I  durst  engage 
myself  with  five  hundred  fresh  horse  and  five  hundred 
nimble  foot,  to  destroy  them  all.  My  horse  are  mis- 
erably beaten  out,  and  I  have  ten  thousand  of  them 
prisoners.''  Hamilton  was  presently  taken  (August 
25),  and  so  the  first  campaign  in  which  Cromwell  had 
held  an  independent  command-in-chief  came  to  a  glor- 
ious close.  When  next  year  Hamilton  was  put  upon 
the  trial  that  ended  in  the  scaffold,  he  said  of  Crom- 
well that  he  was  so  courteous  and  civil  as  to  perform 
more  than  he  promised,  and  that  acknowledgment  was 
due  for  his  favor  to  the  poor  wounded  gentlemen  that 
were  left  behind,  and  by  him  taken  care  of,  and  "truly 
he  did  perform  more  than  he  did  capitulate  for." 

The  military  student  counts  Preston  the  finest  ex- 
ploit of  the  war,  and  even  pronounces  it  the  mark  of 
one  of  those  who  are  born  commanders  by  the  grace 
of  God.  At  least  we  may  say  that  in  the  intrepid 
energy  of  the  commander,  the  fortitude,  stoutness, 
and  discipline  of  the  men,  and  the  momentous  political 
results  that  hung  upon  their  victory,  the  three  days  of 
Preston  are  among  the  most  famous  achievements  of 
the  time.  To  complete  his  task — for  he  was  always 
full  of  that  instinct  of  practical  thoroughness  which 
abhors  the  leaving  of  a  ragged  edge — Cromwell  again 
turned  northward  to  clear  the  border  of  what  had  been 


246  '      OLIVER  CROMWELL 

the  rear  of  Hamilton's  force,  to  recover  the  two  great 
border  strongholds  of  Berwick  and  Carlisle,  and  so  to 
compose  affairs  in  Scotland  that  the  same  perilous 
work  should  not  need  to  be  done  over  again.  He  bar- 
gained with  Argyle,  who  desired  nothing  better,  for 
the  exclusion  from  power  of  the  rival  factions  of  Ham- 
iltonians  and  English,  and  left  a  government  of  ultra- 
Presbyterians  installed,  to  the  scandal  of  English  In- 
dependents, but  in  fact  Cromwell  never  showed  himself 
more  characteristically  politic. 

The  local  risings  in  England  had  been  stamped  out 
either  by  the  alertness  of  the  Parliamentary  authorities 
on  the  spot,  or  by  the  extraordinary  vigor  of  the  Derby 
House  Committee,  which  was  mainly  Independent. 
Fairfax  never  showed  himself  a  belter  soldier.  The 
City,  as  important  a  factor  as  the  Houses  themselves, 
and  now  leaning  to  the  king  upon  conditions,  threat- 
efied  trouble  from  time  to  time ;  but  opinion  wavered, 
and  in  the  end  the  City  made  no  effecti\'e  move.  The 
absence  of  political  agreement  among  the  various  ele- 
ments was  reflected  in  the  absence  of  Royalist  con- 
cert. The  insurrection  in  England  was  too  early, 
or  else  the  advance  from  Scotland  was  too  late. 
By  the  time  when  Cromwell  was  marching  through 
the  midlands  to  join  Lambert  in  Yorkshire,  the 
dead-weight  of  the  majority  of  the  population,  who 
cared  more  for  quiet  than  for  either  king  or  Parlia- 
ment, had  for  the  time  put  out  the  scattered  fires. 
The  old  international  antipathy  revived,  and  even  Roy- 
alists had  seen  with  secret  satisfaction  the  repulse  of 
the  nation  who  in  their  view  had  sold  their  king. 

Meanwhile  in  Parliament  the  Presbyterians  at  first 
had  not  known  what  to  wish,  but  they  were  now  at  no 
loss  about  what  they  had  to  fear.  The  paradox  had 
turned  out   ill.     The   invaders   had  been   beaten,   but 


THE   SECOND   CIVIL   WAR  247 

then  the  invaders  were  of  their  own  persuasion,  and 
the  victors  were  the  hated  Sectaries  with  toleration 
inscribed  upon  their  banners.  The  soldier's  yoke  would 
be  more  galling  than  ever,  and  the  authority  of  Crom- 
well, which  had  been  at  its  lowest  when  he  set  out  for 
Wales,  would  be  higher  than  it  had  ever  been  when 
he  should  come  back  from  Scotland. 

The  Lords  had  become  zealous  Royalists.  They 
would  not  even  join  the  Commons  in  describing  the  in- 
vading Scots  as  enemies.  In  both  Houses  the  Presby- 
terians had  speedily  taken  advantage  of  the  absence 
of  some  of  the  chief  Independents  in  the  field,  and  were 
defiantly  flying  the  old  colors.  In  the  days  when 
Oliver  was  marching  with  his  Ironsides  to  drive  back 
the  invasion  that  would  have  destroyed  them  all,  the 
Lords  regaled  themselves  by  a  fierce  attack  made  upon 
the  absent  Cromwell  by  one  who  had  been  a  major  of 
his  and  enjoyed  his  confidence.  The  major's  version 
of  the  things  that  Oliver  had  said  would  have  made  a 
plausible  foundation  for  an  impeachment,  and  at  the 
same  moment  Holies,  his  bitterest  enemy,  came  back 
to  Westminster  and  took  the  Presbyterian  lead.  So 
in  the  reckless  intensity  of  party  hatred  the  Parliament 
were  preparing  for  the  destruction  of  the  only  man 
who  could  save  them  from  the  uncovenanted  king. 
They  were  as  heated  as  ever  against  the  odious  idea  of 
toleration.  On  the  day  after  the  departure  of  Oliver 
they  passed  an  ordinance  actually  punishing  with  death 
any  one  who  should  hold  or  publish  not  only  Atheism, 
but  Arianism  or  Socinianism,  and  even  the  leading- 
doctrines  of  Arminians,  Baptists,  and  harmless  Quak- 
ers were  made  penal.  Death  was  the  punishment  for 
denying  any  of  the  mysteries  of  the  Trinity;  or  that 
any  of  the  canonical  books  of  Old  Testament  or  New 
is  the  word  of  God ;  and  a  dungeon  was  the  punishment 


248  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

for  holding  that  the  baptism  of  infants  is  unlawful  and 
void,  or  that  man  is  bound  to  believe  no  more  than  his 
reason  can  comprehend.  Our  heroic  Puritan  age  is 
not  without  atrocious  blots. 

Nevertheless  the  Parliamentary  persecutors  were  well 
aware  that  no  ordinance  of  theirs,  however  savory  or 
drastic,  would  be  of  any  avail  unless  new  power  were 
added  to  their  right  arm,  and  this  power,  as  things 
then  stood,  they  could  only  draw  from  alliance  with 
the  king.  If  they  could  bring  him  off  from  the  Isle  of 
Wight  to  London  before  Oliver  and  his  men  could 
return  from  the  north,  they  might  still  have  a  chance. 
They  assumed  that  Charles  would  see  that  here  too 
was  a  chance  for  him.  They  failed  to  discern  that 
they  had  no  alternative  between  surrendering  on  any 
terms  to  the  king, whose  moral  authority  they  could  not 
do  without,  and  yielding  to  the  army,  whose  military 
authority  was  ready  to  break  them.  So  little  insight 
had  they  into  the  heart  of  the  situation,  that  they  took 
a  course  that  exasperated  the  army,  while  they  per- 
sisted in  trying  to  impose  such  terms  upon  the  king  as 
nobody  who  knew  him  could  possibly  expect  him  to 
keep.  Political  incompetency  could  go  no  further,  and 
the  same  failure  inevitably  awaited  their  designs  as  had 
befallen  Cromwell  when,  a  year  before,  he  had  made  a 
similar  attempt. 

On  the  day  after  the  news  of  Oliver's  success  at 
Warrington  the  Parliamentary  majority  repealed  the 
vote  against  further  addresses  to  the  king,  and  then 
hurried  on  to  their  proposals  for  a  treaty.  The  nego- 
tiations opened  at  Newport  in  the  Isle  of  Wight  on  the 
1 8th  of  September,  and  were  spun  out  until  near  the 
end  of  November.  "They  who  had  not  seen  the 
king,"  says  Clarendon,  "for  near  two  years  found  his 
countenance  extremely  altered.     From  the  time  that 


From  the  original  portrait  in  the  collection  of  the  Marqnis  of  Lothian,  at  Nevvbattle  Abbey,  Dalkeith. 
ARCHIBALD   CAMPBELL,  FIRST   MARQUIS   OF   ARGYLL. 


THE   SECOND   CIVIL  WAR  249 

his  own  servants  had  been  taken  from  him  he  would 
never  suffer  his  hair  to  be  cut,  nor  cared  to  have  any 
new  clothes,  so  that  his  aspect  and  appearance  was  very 
different  from  what  it  had  used  to  be;  otherwise  his 
health  was  good,  and  he  was  much  more  cheerful  in 
his  discourses  toward  all  men,  than  could  have  been 
imagined  after  such  mortification  of  all  kinds.  He 
was  not  at  all  dejected  in  his  spirits,  but  carried  himself 
with  the  same  majesty  he  had  used  to  do.  His  hair 
was  all  gray,  which,  making  all  others  very  sad,  made 
it  thought  that  he  had  sorrow  in  his  countenance, 
which  appeared  only  by  that  shadow."  There  he  sat 
at  the  head  of  the  council-table,  the  fifteen  commission- 
ers of  the  Parliament,  including  Vane  and  Fiennes, 
the  only  two  men  of  the  Independent  wing,  seated  at  a 
little  distance  below  him.  Charles  showed  his  usual 
power  of  acute  dialectic,  and  he  conducted  the  proceed- 
ings with  all  the  cheerfulness,  ease,  and  courtly  gravity 
of  a  fine  actor  in  an  ironic  play.  The  old  ground  of 
the  propositions  at  Uxbridge,  at  Newcastle,  at  Oxford, 
at  Hampton  Court,  was  once  more  trodden,  with  one 
or  two  new  interludes.  Charles,  even  when  retreating, 
fought  every  inch  with  a  tenacity  that  was  the  despair 
of  men  who  each  hour  seemed  to  hear  approaching 
nearer  and  nearer  the  clatter  of  the  Cromwellian 
troopers. 

Church  government  was  now  as  ever  the  rock  on 
which  Charles  chose  that  the  thing  should  break  off. 
Day  after  day  he  insisted  on  the  partition  of  the  apos- 
tolic office  between  Bishops  and  Presbyters,  cited  the 
array  of  texts  from  the  Epistles,  and  demonstrated  that 
Timothy  and  Titus  were  cpiscopi  pastorum,  bishops 
over  Presbyters,  and  not  cpiscopi  grcgis,  shepherds 
over  sheep.  In  all  this  Charles  was  in  his  element, 
for  he  defended  tenets  that  he  sincerely  counted  sacred. 


250  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

At  length  after  the  distracted  ParHament  had  more 
than  once  extended  the  allotted  time,  the  end  came 
(November  27).  Charles  would  agree  that  Episco- 
pacy should  be  suspended  for  three  years,  and  that  it 
might  be  limited,  but  he  would  not  assent  to  its  abo- 
lition, and  he  would  not  assent  to  an  alienation  of  the 
fee  of  the  church  lands. 

A  modern  student,  if  he  reads  the  Newport  treaty 
as  a  settlement  upon  paper,  may  think  that  it  falls 
little  short  of  the  justice  of  the  case.  Certainly  if  the 
parties  to  it  had  been  acting  in  good  faith,  this  or 
almost  any  of  the  proposed  agreements  might  have 
been  workable.  As  it  was,  any  treaty  now  made  at 
Newport  must  be  the  symbol  of  a  new  working  coali- 
tion between  Royalist  and  Presbyterian,  and  any  such 
coalition  was  a  declaration  of .  war  against  Indepen- 
dents and  army.  It  was  to  undo  the  work  of  Preston 
and  Colchester,  to  prepare  a  third  sinister  outbreak  of 
violence  and  confusion,  and  to  put  Cromwell  and  his 
allies  back  again  upon  that  sharp  and  perilous  razor- 
edge  of  fortune  from  which  they  had  just  saved 
themselves. 

It  was  their  own  fault  again  if  the  Parliament  did 
not  know  that  Charles,  from  the  first  day  of  the  nego- 
tiations to  the  last,  was  busily  contriving  plans  for  his 
escape  from  the  island.  He  seems  to  have  nursed  a 
wild  idea  that  if  he  could  only  find  his  way  to  Ireland 
he  might,  in  conjunction  with  the  ships  from  Holland 
under  the  command  of  Rupert,  place  himself  at  the 
head  of  an  Irish  invasion,  with  better  fortune  than  had 
attended  the  recent  invasion  of  the  Scots.  "The  great 
concession  I  have  made  to-day,"  he  wrote  to  a  secret 
correspondent,  "was  merely  in  order  to  my  escape." 
While  publicly  forbidding  Ormonde  to  go  on  in  Ireland, 
privately  he  writes  to  him  not  to  heed  any  open  com- 


THE   SECOND    CIVIL   Wx\R  251 


restraint;  Ormonde  should  pursue  the  way  he  is  in 
with  all  possible  vigor,  and  must  not  be  astonished  at 
any  published  concessions,  for  "they  would  come  to 
nothing." 

Watching  the  proceedings  with  fierce  impatience,  at 
last  the  army  with  startling  rapidity  brought  the 
elusive  conflict  to  a  crisis.  A  week  before  the  close 
of  negotiations  at  Newport,  a  deputation  from  Fairfax 
and  his  general  council  of  officers  came  up  to  the  house 
as  bearers  of  a  great  remonstrance.  Like  all  that  came 
from  the  pen  of  Ireton,  it  is  powerfully  argued,  and  it 
is  also  marked  by  his  gift  of  inordinate  length.  It 
fills  nearly  fifty  pages  of  the  Parliamentary  history, 
and  could  not  have  been  read  by  a  clerk  at  the  table  in 
much  less  than  three  hours.  The  points  are  simple 
enough.  First,  it  would  be  stupidity  rather  than 
charity  to  suppose  that  the  king's  concessions  arose 
from  inward  remorse  or  conviction,  and  therefore  to 
continue  to  treat  with  him  was  both  danger  and  folly. 
Second,  he  had  been  guilty  of  moral  and  civil  acts 
judged  capital  in  his  predecessors,  and  therefore  he 
ought  to  be  brought  to  trial.  Other  delinquents  be- 
sides the  king  in  both  wars,  ought  to  be  executed,  and 
the  soldiers  ought  to  have  their  arrears  paid.  This 
was  the  upshot  of  the  document  that  the  body  of  offi- 
cers, some  of  whom  had  capital  sentence  executed 
upon  themselves  in  days  to  come,  now  in  respectful 
form  presented  to  the  House  of  Commons. 

The  majority  in  the  Commons,  with  a  high  spirit 
that  was  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  power,  insisted 
on  postponing  the  consideration  of  the  demands  of  "a 
council  of  Sectaries  in  arms.''  In  fact  they  never 
would  nor  did  consider  them,  and  the  giant  remon- 
strance of  the  army  went  into  the  limbo  of  all  the  other 


252  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

documents  in  which  those  times  were  so  marvelously 
fertile.  As  a  presentation  of  the  difficulties  of  the 
hour,  it  is  both  just  and  penetrating;  but  these  after 
all  were  quite  as  easy  to  see  as  they  were  hard  to  over- 
come. We  usually  find  a  certain  amount  of  practical 
reason  even  at  the  bottom  of  what  passes  for  political 
fanaticism.  What  Harrison  and  his  allies  saw  was 
that  if  king  and  Parliament  agreed,  the  army  would 
be  disbanded.  If  that  happened  its  leaders  would  be 
destroyed  for  what  they  had  done  already.  If  not, 
they  would  be  proclaimed  as  traitors  and  hinderers  of 
the  public  peace,  and  destroyed  for  what  they  might  be 
expected  to  do. 


CHAPTER  VI 
FINAL  CRISIS — Cromwell's  share  in  it 

IT  is  one  of  the  mortifications  of  Cromwell's  history 
that  we  are  unable  accurately  to  trace  his  share  in 
the  events  that  immediately  preceded  the  trial  of  the 
king.  It  was  the  most  critical  act  of  his  history.  Yet 
at  nearly  every  turn  in  the  incidents  that  prepared  it, 
the  diligent  inquirer  is  forced  to  confess  that  there  is 
httle  evidence  to  settle  what  was  the  precise  part  that 
Cromwell  played.  This  deep  reserve  and  impenetrable 
obscurity  was  undoubtedly  one  of  the  elements  of  his 
reputation  for  craft  and  dissimulation.  If  they  do  not 
read  a  public  man  in  an  open  page,  men  are  easily 
tempted  to  suspect  the  worst. 

When  the  negotiations  were  opened  at  Newport 
Cromwell  was  on  his  march  into  Scotland.  He  did 
not  return  until  the  later  days  of  October,  when  the 
army  and  its  leaders  had  grown  uncontrollably  restive 
at  the  slow  and  tortuous  course  of  the  dealings  between 
the  king  and  the  commissioners  of  the  Parliament. 
Cromwell  had  thus  been  absent  from  Westminster  for 
six  months,  since  the  time  of  his  first  despatch  to  put 
down  the  Royalist  rising  in  Wales.  The  stress  of 
actual  war  had  only  deepened  the  exasperation  with 
which  he  had  watched  the  gathering  clouds,  and  which 
had  found  expression  in  the  fierce  language  at  the 
memorable    prayer-meeting    at    Windsor.      All    this, 

253 


254  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

however,  is  a  long  way  from  the  decision  that  events 
were  hurrying  on.  and  from  which  more  rapid  and  less 
apprehensive  minds  than  his  had  long  ceased  to  shrink. 
With  what  eyes  he  watched  the  new  approaches  to  the 
king,  he  showed  in  a  letter  to  the  Speaker.  After  giv- 
ing his  report  as  a  soldier,  and  showing  that  affairs  in 
Scotland  were  in  a  thriving  posture,  he  advances  (Oc- 
tober 9)  on  to  other  ground,  and  uses  ominous  lan- 
guage about  "the  treachery  of  some  in  England,  who 
had  endangered  the  whole  state  and  kingdom  of  Eng- 
land, and  who  now  had  cause  to  blush."  in  spite  of  all 
the  religious  pretences  by  which  they  had  masked  their 
proceedings.  This  could  only  mean  his  Presbyterian 
opponents.  "But  God,  who  is  not  to  be  mocked  or 
deceived,  and  is  very  jealous  when  his  name  and  reli- 
gion are  made  use  of  to  carry  on  impious  designs,  has 
taken  vengeance  on  such  profanity,  even  to  astonish- 
ment and  admiration.  And  I  wish,  from  the  bottom 
of  my  heart,  it  may  cause  all  to  tremble  and  repent  who 
have  practised  the  like,  to  the  blasphemy  of  his  name 
and  the  destruction  of  his  people,  so  as  they  may  never 
presume  to  do  the  like  again,  and  1  think  it  is  not 
unseasonable  for  me  to  take  the  humble  boldness  to 
say  thus  much  at  this  time.'' 

Writing  to  Colonel  Hammond  (November  6),  the 
custodian  of  the  king,  a  month  later  from  before  the 
frowning  walls  of  Pontefract  Castle,  Cromwell 
smiles  in  good-humored  ridicule  at  the  notion  that  it 
would  be  as  safe  to  expect  a  good  peace  from  a  settle- 
ment on  the  base  of  moderate  Episcopacy  as  of  Pres- 
bytery. At  the  same  time  he  vindicates  his  own  Pres- 
byterian settlement  in  Scotland,  throwing  out  his 
guiding  principle  in  a  parenthesis  of  characteristic 
fervor  and  sincerity.  "I  profess  to  thee  I  desire  from 
my  heart,  I  have  prayed  for  it,  I  have  waited  for  the 


THE  FINAL   CRISIS  255 

day  to  see  union  and  right  understanding  between  the 
godly  people — Scots,  English,  Jews,  Gentiles,  Presby- 
terians, Independents,  Anabaptists,  and  all."  Still  if  the 
king  could  have  looked  over  Hammond's  shoulder  as 
he  read  Cromwell's  letter,  he  would  not  have  seen  a  sin- 
gle word  pointing  to  the  terrible  fate  that  was  now 
so  swiftly  closing  upon  him.  He  would  have  seen 
nothing  more  formidable  than  a  suggestion  that  the 
best  course  might  be  to  break  the  sitting  Parliament 
and  call  a  new  one.  To  Charles  this  would  have  little 
terror,  for  he  might  well  believe  that  no  Parliament 
could  possibly  be  called  under  which  his  life  would  be 
put  in  peril. 

A  few  days  later  Cromwell  gave  signs  of  rising 
anger  in  a  letter  to  two  members  of  Parliament,  who 
inclined  to  lenient  courses  toward  delinquents.  "Did 
not  the  House,"  he  asks,  "vote  every  man  a  traitor  who 
sided  with  the  Scots  in  their  late  invasion?  And  not 
without  very  clear  justice,  this  being  a  more  prodigious 
treason  than  any  that  hath  been  perfected  in  England 
before,  because  the  former  cjuarrel  was  that  English- 
men might  rule  over  one  another,  this  to  Z'assali:;e  us  to 
a  foreign  nation.'"  Here  was  the  sting,  for  we  have 
never  to  forget  that  Oliver,  like  Milton,  was  ever  Eng- 
lish of  the  English.  Then  follow  some  ominous  hints, 
though  he  still  rather  reports  the  mind  of  others  than 
makes  plain  his  own.  "Give  me  leave  to  tell  you,  I 
find  a  sense  among  the  officers  concerning  such  things 
as  the  treatment  of  these  men  to  amazement,  which 
truly  is  not  so  much  to  see  their  blood  made  so  cheap 
as  to  see  such  manifest  witnessings  of  God,  so  terrible 
and  so  just,  no  more  reverenced." 

To  Fairfax  on  the  same  day  he  writes  in  the  same 
tone  that  he  finds  in  the  officers  a  very  great  sense  of 
the  sufferings  of  the  kingdom,  and  a  very  great  zeal 


256  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

to  have  impartial  justice  clone  upon  offenders.  "And 
I  must  confess,"  he  adds,  striking  for  the  first  time  a 
new  and  dangerous  note  of  his  own,  "I  do  in  all  from 
my  heart  concur  with  them,  and  I  verily  think,  and  am 
persuaded,  they  are  things  which  God  puts  into  our 
hearts."  But  he  still  moves  very  slowly,  and  follows 
rather  than  leads. 

Finally  he  writes  once  more  to  Hammond  on 
November  25th  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  all  the 
letters  he  ever  wTote.  That  worthy  soldier  had 
groaned  under  the  burdens  and  misgivings  of  his  posi- 
tion. "Such  talk  as  this,"  says  Cromwell,  "such 
words  as  heavy,  sad,  pleasant,  easy,  are  but  the  snares 
of  fleshly  reasonings.  Call  not  your  burdens  sad  or 
heavy;  it  is  laid  on  you  by  One  from  whom  comes 
every  good  and  perfect  gift,  being  for  the  exercise  of 
faith  and  patience,  whereby  in  the  end  we  shall  be  made 
perfect.  Seek  rather  whether  there  be  not  some  high 
and  glorious  meaning  in  all  that  chain  of  Providence 
which  brought  that  person  [the  king]  to  thee,  and  be 
sure  that  this  purpose  can  never  be  the  exaltation  of 
the  wicked."  From  this  strain  of  devout  stoicism  he 
turns  to  the  policy  of  the  hour. 

Hammond  was  doubtful  about  the  acts  and  aims  of 
the  extreme  men  as  respects  both  king  and  Parlia- 
ment. "It  is  true,  as  you  say,"  Cromwell  replies,  "that 
authorities  and  powers  are  the  ordinance  of  God,  and 
that  in  England  authority  and  power  reside  in  the  Par- 
liament. But  these  authorities  may  not  do  what  they 
like,  and  still  demand  our  obedience.  All  agree  that 
there  are  cases  in  which  it  is  lawful  to  resist.  Is  ours 
such  a  case?  This,  frankly,  is  the  true  question." 
Then  he  produces  three  considerations,  as  if  he  were 
revolving  over  again  the  arguments  that  were  turning 
his  own  mind.     First,  is  it  sound  to  stand  on  safety 


THE   FINAL   CRISIS  257 

of  the  people  as  the  supreme  law?  Second,  will  the 
treaty  between  king  and  Parliament  secure  the  safety 
of  the  people,  or  will  it  not  frustrate  the  whole  fruit 
of  the  war  and  bring  back  all  to  what  it  was,  and 
worse?  Third,  is  it  not  possible  that  the  army,  too, 
may  be  a  lawful  power,  ordained  by  God  to  fight  the 
king  on  stated  grounds,  and  that  the  army  may  resist 
on  the  same  grounds  one  name  of  authority,  the  Par- 
liament, as  well  as  the  other  authority,  the  king? 

Then  he  suddenly  is  dissatisfied  with  his  three  argu- 
ments. ''Truly,"  he  cries,  "this  kind  of  reasoning 
may  be  but  fleshly,  either  with  or  against,  only  it  is 
good  to  try  what  truth  may  be  in  them."  Cromwell's 
understanding  was  far  too  powerful  not  to  perceive 
that  salits  popiili  and  the  rest  of  it  would  serve  just  as 
well  for  Strafford  or  for  Charles  as  it  served  for  Ireton 
and  the  army,  and  that  usurpation  by  troopers  must  be 
neither  more  nor  less  hard  to  justify  in  principle  than 
usurpation  by  a  king.  So  he  falls  back  on  the  simpler 
ground  of  "providences,"  always  his  favorite  strong- 
hold. "They  hang  so  together,  have  been  so  constant, 
clear,  unclouded."  Was  it  possible  that  the  same  Lord 
who  had  been  with  his  people  in  all  their  victorious 
actings  was  not  with  them  in  that  steady  and  unmis- 
takable growth  of  opinion  about  the  present  crisis,  of 
which  Hammond  is  so  much  afraid?  "You  speak  of 
tempting  God.  There  are  two  ways  of  this.  Action 
in  presumptuous  and  carnal  confidence  is  one ;  action  in 
unbelief  through  diffidence  is  the  other."  Though 
difficulties  confronted  them,  the  more  the  difficulties 
the  more  the  faith. 

From  the  point  of  a  modern's  carnal  reasoning  all 
this  has  a  thoroughly  sophistic  flavor,  and  it  leaves  a 
doubt  of  its  actual  weight  in  Oliver's  own  mind  at  the 
moment.     Nor  was  his  mind  really  made  up  on  inde- 

17 


258  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

pendent  grounds,  for  he  goes  on  to  say  plainly  that 
they  in  the  northern  army  were  in  a  waiting  posture. 
It  was  not  until  the  southern  army  put  out  its  remon- 
strance that  they  changed.  z\fter  that  many  were 
shaken.  "We  could,  perhaps,  have  zvished  the  stay  of 
it  till  after  the  treaty,  yet,  seeing  it  is  come  out,  we 
trust  to  rejoice  in  the  will  of  the  Lord,  waiting  his 
further  pleasure."  This  can  only  mean  that  Ireton 
and  his  party  were  pressing  forward  of  their  own  will. 
and  without  impulse  from  Cromwell  at  Pontefract. 
Yet  it  is  equally  evident  that  he  did  not  disapprove. 
In  concluding  the  letter  he  denounces  the  treaty  of 
Newport  as  a  "ruining,  hypocritical  agreement,"  and 
remonstrates  with  those  of  their  friends  who  expect 
good  from  Charles — "good  by  this  Man,  against  whom 
the  Lord  hath  witnessed,  and  whom  thou  knowest!" 

A  writer  of  a  hostile  school  has  remarked  in  this 
memorable  letter  "its  cautious  obscurity,  shadowy  sig- 
nificance ;  its  suavity,  tenderness,  subtlety ;  the  way  in 
which  he  alludes  to  more  than  he  mentions,  suggests 
more  than  pronounces  his  own  argumentative  inten- 
tion, and  opens  an  indefinite  view,  all  the  hard  fea- 
tures of  which  he  softly  puts  aside"  (J.  B.  Mozley). 
Quite  true;  but  what  if  this  be  the  real  Cromwell,  and 
represents  the  literal  working  of  his  own  habit  and 
temper  ? 

When  this  letter  reached  the  Isle  of  Wight,  Ham- 
mond was  no  longer  there.  The  army  had  made  up 
their  minds  to  act,  and  the  blow  had  fallen.  The  fate 
of  the  king  was  sealed.  In  this  decision  there  is  no 
evidence  that  Cromwell  had  any  share.  His  letter 
to  Hammond  is  our  last  glimpse  of  him,  and  from 
that  and  the  rest  the  sounder  conclusion  seems  to  be 
that  even  yet  he  would  fain  have  gone  slow,  but  was 
forced  to  go  fast.     Charles  might  possibly  even  at  the 


THE   FINAL   CRISIS  259 

eleventh  hour  have  made  his  escape,  but  he  still  nursed 
the  illusion  that  the  army  could  not  crush  the  Parlia- 
ment without  him.  He  had,  moreover,  given  his 
parole.  When  reminded  that  he  had  given  it  not  to 
the  army  but  to  the  Parliament,  his  somber  pride  for 
once  withstood  a  sophism.  At  break  of  the  winter 
day  (December  i)  a  body  of  officers  broke  into  his 
chamber,  put  him  into  a  coach,  conducted  him  to  the 
coast,  and  then  transported  him  across  the  Solent  to 
Hurst  Castle,  a  desolate  and  narrow  blockhouse  stand- 
ing at  the  edge  of  a  shingly  spit  on  the  Hampshire 
shore.  In  those  dreary  quarters  he  remained  a  fort- 
night. The  last  scene  was  now  rapidly  approaching  of 
the  desperate  drama  in  which  every  one  of  the  actors — 
king.  Parliament,  army,  Cromwell — was  engaged  in  a 
death  struggle  with  an  implacable  necessity. 

At  Westminster,  meanwhile,  futile  proceedings  in  the 
House  of  Commons  had  been  brought  to  a  rude  close. 
The  House  resolved  by  a  large  majority  once  more 
(November  30)  not  to  consider  the  army  remon- 
strance, and  the  army  promptly  replied  by  marching 
into  London  two  days  after  (December  2).  Two 
days  after  that  the  House,  with  a  long  and  very  sharp 
discussion,  put  upon  record  a  protest  against  the  forci- 
ble removal  of  the  king  without  their  knowledge  or 
consent.  They  then  proceeded  to  debate  the  king's 
answers  to  their  commissioners  at  the  Isle  of  Wight. 
A  motion  was  made  that  the  answers  should  be  ac- 
cepted, but  the  motion  finally  carried  was  in  the  weak- 
ened and  dilatory  form  that  the  answers  "were  a 
ground  for  the  House  to  proceed  upon  for  the  settle- 
ment of  the  peace  of  the  kingdom"  (December  5). 
This  was  the  final  provocation  to  the  soldiers.  The 
same  afternoon  a  full  consultation  took  place  between 
some  of  the  principal  officers  of  the  army  and  a  num- 


260  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

ber  of  members  of  Parliament.  One  side  were  for 
forcible  dissolution,  as  Cromwell  had  at  one  time  been 
for  it;  the  other  were  for  the  less  sweeping  measure 
of  a  partial  purge.  A  committee  of  three  members 
of  the  House  and  three  officers  of  the  army  was  or- 
dered to  settle  the  means  for  putting  a  stop  to  proceed- 
ings in  Parliament,  that  were  nothing  less  than  a  for- 
feiture of  its  trust.  These  six  agreed  that  the  army 
should  be  drawn  out  next  morning,  and  guards  placed 
in  Westminster  Hall  and  the  lobby,  that  "none  might 
be  permitted  to  pass  into  the  house  but  such  as  had 
continued  faithful  to  the  public  interest."  At  seven 
o'clock  next  morning  (December  6)  Colonel  Pride 
was  at  his  post  in  the  lobby,  and  before  night  one  hun- 
dred and  forty-three  members  had  either  been  locked 
up  or  forcibly  turned  back  from  the  doors  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  The  same  night  Cromwell  returned 
from  Yorkshire  and  lay  at  Whitehall,  where  Fairfax 
already  was,  I  suppose  for  the  first  time.  "There," 
says  Ludlow,  "and  at  other  places,  Cromwell  declared 
that  he  had  not  been  acquainted  with  this  design,  yet, 
since  it  was  done,  he  was  glad  of  it  and  would  endeavor 
to  maintain  it." 

The  process  was  completed  next  day.  A  week  later 
(December  15)  the  council  of  officers  determined 
that  Charles  should  be  brought  to  Windsor,  and  Fair- 
fax sent  orders  accordingly.  In  the  depth  of  the  win- 
ter night  the  king  in  the  desolate  keep  on  the  sea- 
shingle  heard  the  clanking  of  the  drawbridge,  and  at 
daybreak  he  learned  that  the  redoubtable  Major  Har- 
rison had  arrived.  Charles  well  knew  how  short  a 
space  divides  the  prison  of  a  prince  from  his  grave. 
He  had  often  revolved  in  his  mind  "sad  stories  of  the 
death  of  kings" — of  Henry  VI,  of  Edward  II  mur- 
dered at  Berkeley,  of  Richard  II  at  Pontefract,  of  his 


THE   FINAL   CRISIS  261 

grandmother  at  Fotheringay — and  he  thought  that 
the  presence  of  Harrison  must  mean  that  his  own  hour 
had  now  come  for  a  hke  mysterious  doom.  Harrison 
was  no  man  for  these  midnight  deeds,  though  he  was 
fervid  in  his  behef,  and  so  he  told  the  king,  that  justice 
was  no  respecter  of  persons,  and  great  and  small  alike 
must  be  submitted  to  the  law.  Charles  was  relieved 
to  find  that  he  was  only  going  "to  exchange  the  worst 
of  his  castles  for  the  best,"  and  after  a  ride  of  four 
days  (December  19-23)  through  the  New  Forest,  Win- 
chester, Farnham,  Bagshot,  he  found  himself  once 
more  at  the  noblest  of  the  palaces  of  the  English  sov- 
ereigns. Here  for  some  three  weeks  he  passed  infatu- 
ated hours  in  the  cheerful  confidence  that  the  dead-lock 
was  as  immovable  as  ever,  that  his  enemies  would  find 
the  knot  inextricable,  that  he  was  still  their  master, 
and  that  the  blessed  day  would  soon  arrive  when  he 
should  fit  round  their  necks  the  avenging  halter. 


CHAPTER   VII 


THE    DEATH    OF    THE    KING 

THE  Commons  meanwhile,  duly  purged  or  packed, 
had  named  a  committee  to  consider  the  means  of 
bringing  the  king  to  justice,  and  they  passed  an  ordi- 
nance (January  i,  1649)  fo^  setting  up.  to  try  him,  a 
high  court  of  justice  composed  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
commissioners  and  three  judges.  After  going  through 
its  three  readings,  and  backed  by  a  resolution  that  by 
the  fundamental  laws  of  the  kingdom  it  is  treason  in 
the  king  to  levy  war  against  the  Parliament  and  king- 
dom of  England,  the  ordinance  was  sent  up  to  the 
Lords.  The  Lords,  only  numbering  twelve  on  this 
strange  occasion,  promptly,  passionately,  and  unani- 
mously rejected  it.  The  fifty  or  sixty  members  who 
were  now  the  acting  House  of  Commons,  retorted  with 
revolutionary  energy.  They  instantly  passed  a  resolu- 
tion (January  4)  afifirming  three  momentous  propo- 
sitions :  that  the  people  are  the  original  of  power ;  that 
the  Commons  in  Parliament  assembled  have  the  su- 
preme power;  and  that  what  they  enact  has  the  force 
of  law,  even  without  the  consent  of  either  king  or 
Lords,  omitting  the  judges  and  reducing  the  commis- 
sioners to  one  hundred  and  thirty-five.  Then  they 
passed  their  ordinance  over  again  (January  6).  Two 
days  later  the  famous  High  Court  of  Justice  met 
262 


THE    DEATH    OF    THE    KING  263 

for  the  first  time  in  the  Painted  Chamber,  but  out  of 
one  hundred  and  thirty-fi\'e  persons  named  in  the  act, 
no  more  than  fifty-two  appeared,  Fairfax,  Cromwell, 
and  Ireton  being  among  them. 

We  must  pause  to  consider  what  was  the  part  that 
Cromwell  played  in  this  tragical  unraveling  of  the  plot. 
For  long  it  can  hardly  have  been  the  guiding  part. 
He  was  not  present  when  the  officers  decided  to  order 
the  king  to  be  brought  from  Hurst  Castle  to  Windsor 
(December  15).  He  is  known,  during  the  week  fol- 
lowing that  event,  to  have  been  engaged  in  grave 
counsel  with  Speaker  Lenthall  and  two  other  eminent 
men  of  the  same  legal  and  cautious  temper,  as  though 
he  were  still  painfully  looking  for  some  lawful  door  of 
escape  from  an  impassable  dilemma.  Then  he  made  a 
strong  attempt  to  defer  the  king's  trial  until  after  they 
had  tried  other  important  delinquents  in  the  second 
war.  Finally  there  is  a  shadowy  story  of  new  over- 
tures to  the  king  made  with  Cromwell's  connivance  on 
the  very  eve  of  the  day  of  fate.  On  close  handling  the 
tale  crumbles  into  guesswork;  for  the  difference  be- 
tween a  safe  and  an  unsafe  guess  is  not  enough  to 
transform  a  possible  into  an  actual  event;  and  a  hunt 
for  conjectural  motives  for  conjectural  occurrences  is 
waste  of  time.  The  curious  delay  in  his  return  to 
London  and  the  center  of  action  is  not  without  sig- 
nificance. He  reaches  Carlyle  on  October  14th,  he 
does  not  summon  Pontefract  until  November  9th,  and 
he  remains  before  it  until  the  opening  of  December. 
It  is  hard  to  understand  why  he  should  not  have  left 
Lambert,  a  most  excellent  soldier,  in  charge  of  oper- 
ations at  an  earlier  date,  unless  he  had  been  wishful  to 
let  the  manoeuvers  in  Parliament  and  camp  take  what 
course  they  might.  He  had  no  stronger  feeling  in  emer- 
gency than  a  dread  of  forestalling  the  Lord's  leadings. 


264  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

The  cloud  that  wraps  Cromwell  about  during  the  ter- 
rible month  between  his  return  from  Yorkshire  and  the 
erection  of  the  High  Court,  is  impenetrable;  and  we 
have  no  better  guide  than  our  general  knowledge  of  his 
politic  understanding,  his  caution,  his  persistence,  his 
freedom  from  revengeful  temper,  his  habitual  slowness 
in  making  decisive  moves. 

We  may  be  sure  that  all  through  the  month,  as  *'he 
lay  in  one  of  the  king's  rich  beds  at  Whitehall,"  where 
Fairfax  and  he  had  taken  up  their  quarters,  Cromwell 
revolved  all  the  perils  and  sounded  all  the  depths  of 
the  abyss  to  which  necessity  was  hurrying  him  and  the 
cause.  What  courses  were  open?  They  might  by 
ordinance  depose  the  king,  and  then  either  banish  him 
from  the  realm,  or  hold  him  for  the  rest  of  his  days  in 
the  Tower.  Or  could  they  try  and  condemn  him,  and 
then  trust  to  the  dark  shadow  of  the  axe  upon  his 
prison  wall  to  frighten  him  at  last  into  full  surrender? 
Even  if  this  design  prevailed,  what  sanctity  could  the 
king  or  his  successors  be  expected  to  attach  to  consti- 
tutional concessions  granted  under  duress  so  dire? 
Again,  was  monarchy  the  indispensable  key-stone,  to 
lock  all  the  parts  of  national  government  into  their 
places?     If  so,  then  the  king  removed  by  deposition 

EXPLANATION-   OF   THE    LETTERS   ON   THE   PRINT   SHOWING   THE   TRIAL 
OF    CHARLES    I.       (SEE    NEXT    PAGE.) 

A,  the  king ;  B,  the  lord  president,  Bradshaw;  C,  John  Lisle,  D,  W.  Say, 
assistants  to  Bradshaw ;  E,  A.  Broughton,  F,  John  Phelps,  clerks  ;  G,  table 
with  mace  and  sword ;  H,  benches  for  the  Commoners ;  I,  arms  of  the 
Commonwealth,  which  the  usurpers  have  caused  there  to  be  affixed  ;  K, 
Oliver  Cromwell,  L,  Harry  Martin,  supporters  of  the  Commonwealth  ;  M, 
spectators ;  N,  floor  of  the  court,  W,  O,  X,  passage  from  the  court ;  P,  Q, 
guard ;  R,  passage  leading  to  the  king's  apartment ;  S,  council  for  the 
Commonwealth  ;  T,  stairs  from  the  body  of  the  hall  to  the  court ;  V,  pas- 
sage from  Sir  Robert  Cotton's  house,  where  the  king  was  confined,  to  the 
hall;  Y,  spectators;  Z,  officers  of  the  court. 


From  Clarendon's  "History  of  the  Civil  War,"  in  the  British  Museum. 
THE   TRIAI,   OF   CHARLES   I. 


THE    DEATH    OF    THE    KING  265 

or  by  abdication,  perhaps  one  of  his  younger  sons 
might  be  set  up  in  his  stead,  with  the  army  behind  him. 
\\'as  any  course  of  this  temporising  kind  practicable, 
even  in  the  very  first  step  of  it.  apart  from  later  con- 
sequences ?  Or  was  the  temper  of  the  army  too  fierce, 
the  dream  of  the  republican  too  vivid,  the  furnace  of 
faction  too  hot?  For  we  have  to  recollect  that  noth- 
ing in  all  the  known  world  of  politics  is  so  intractable 
as  a  band  of  zealots  conscious  that  they  are  a  minor- 
ity, yet  armed  by  accident  with  the  powers  of  a  major- 
ity. Party  considerations  were  not  likely  to  be 
omitted ;  and  to  destroy  the  king  was  undoubtedly 
to  strike  a  potent  instrument  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
Presbyterians.  \\'hatever  reaction  might  follow  in 
the  public  mind  would  be  to  the  advantage  of  Royal- 
ism,  not  of  Presbyterianism,  and  so  indeed  it  ultimately 
proved.  Yet  to  bring  the  king  to  trial  and  to  cut  off 
his  head — is  it  possible  to  suppose  that  Cromwell  was 
blind  to  the  endless  array  of  new  difficulties  that  would 
instantly  spring  up  from  that  inexpiable  act?  Here 
was  the  fatal  mischief.  No  other  way  may  have  been 
conceivable  out  of  the  black  flood  of  difficulties  in 
which  the  ship  and  its  fiery  crew  were  tossing,  and 
Cromwell  with  his  firm  gaze  had  at  last  persuaded  him- 
self that  this  way  must  be  tried.  What  is  certain  is 
that  he  cannot  have  forgotten  to  count  the  cost,  and 
he  must  have  known  what  a  wall  he  was  raising  against 
that  settlement  of  the  peace  of  the  nation  which  he  so 
devoutly  hoped  for. 

After  all,  violence,  though  in  itself  always  an  evil 
and  always  the  root  of  evil,  is  not  the  worst  of  evils, 
so  long  as  it  does  not  mean  the  obliteration  of  the  sense 
of  righteousness  and  of  duty.  And.  howe^■er  we  may 
judge  the  balance  of  policy  to  have  inclined,  men  like 
Cromwell  felt  to  the  depths  of  their  hearts  that  in  put- 


266  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

ting  to  death  the  man  whose  shifty  and  senseless  coun- 
sels had  plunged  the  land  in  bloodshed  and  confusion, 
they  were  performing  an  awful  act  of  sovereign  justice 
and  executing  the  decree  of  the  supreme.  Men  like 
Ludlow  might  feed  and  fortify  themselves  on  misin- 
terpretations of  sanguinary  texts  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. "I  was  convinced,"  says  that  hard-tempered 
man,  "that  an  accommodation  with  the  king  was  un- 
just and  wicked  in  the  nature  of  it  by  the  express 
w^ords  of  God's  law ;  that  blood  defileth  the  land,  and 
the  land  cannot  be  cleansed  of  the  blood  that  is  shed 
therein,  but  by  the  blood  of  him  that  shed  it.  Crom- 
well was  as  much  addicted  to  an  apt  text  as  anybody, 
but  the  stern  crisis  of  his  life  w-as  not  to  be  settled  by 
a  single  verse  of  the  Bible.  Only  one  utterance  of  his 
at  this  grave  moment  survives,  and  though  in  the  high- 
est degree  remarkable,  it  is  opaque  rather  than  trans- 
parent. When  the  ordinance  creating  the  High  Court 
was  before  the  House  of  Commons,  he  said  this : — "If 
any  man  whatsoever  hath  carried  on  the  design  of  de- 
posing the  king,  and  disinheriting  his  posterity;  or,  if 
any  man  had  yet  such  a  design,  he  should  be  the  great- 
est rebel  and  traitor  in  the  world ;  but  since  the  provi- 
dence of  God  and  Necessity  hath  cast  this  upon  us,  I 
shall  pray  God  to  bless  our  counsels,  though  I  be  not 
provided  on  the  sudden  to  give  you  counsel."  Provi- 
dence and  Necessity — that  is  to  say,  the  purpose  of 
heaven  disclosed  in  the  shape  of  an  invincible  problem, 
to  which  there  was  only  one  solution,  and  that  a  solu- 
tion imposed  by  force  of  circumstance  and  not  to  be 
defended  by  mere  secular  reasoning. 

However  slow  and  painful  the  steps,  a  decision  once 
taken  w-as  to  Cromwell  irrevocable.  No  man  was  ever 
more  free  from  the  vice  of  looking  back,  and  he  now 
threw  himself  into  the  king's  trial  at  its  final  stages  with 


THE    DEATH    OF    THE    KING  267 

the  same  ruthless  energy  with  which  he  had  ridden  down 
the  king's  men  at  Marston  or  Naseby.  Men  of  virtue, 
courage,  and  pubhc  spirit  as  eminent  as  his  own,  stood 
resolutely  aside,  and  would  not  join  him.  Algernon 
Sidney,  whose  name  had  been  put  in  among  the  judges, 
went  into  the  Painted  Chamber  with  the  others,  and 
after  listening  to  the  debate,  withstood  Cromwell, 
Bradshaw,  and  the  others  to  the  face,  on  the  double 
ground  that  the  king  could  be  tried  by  no  court,  and 
that  by  such  a  court  as  that  was,  no  man  at  all  could 
be  tried.  Cromwell  broke  in  upon  him  in  hoarse 
anger,  "1  tell  you,  we  will  cut  off  his  head  with  the 
crown  upon  it."  "I  cannot  stop  you."  Sidney  replied, 
"but  I  will  keep  myself  clean  from  having  any  hand  in 
this  business."  Vane  had  been  startled  even  by  Pride's 
Purge,  and  though  he  and  Oliver  were  as  brothers  to 
one  another,  he  refused  either  now  to  take  any  part  in 
the  trial,  or  ever  to  approve  the  execution  afterward. 
Stories  are  told  indicative  of  Cromwell's  rough  excite- 
ment and  misplaced  buffooneries,  but  they  are  probably 
mythic.  It  is  perhaps  true  that  on  the  first  day  of  the 
trial,  looking  forth  from  the  Painted  Chamber,  he  saw 
the  king  step  from  his  barge  on  his  way  to  Westmin- 
ster Hall,  and  "with  a  face  as  white  as  the  wall,"  called 
out  to  the  others  that  the  king  was  coming,  and  that 
they  must  be  ready  to  answer  what  was  sure  to  be  the 
king's  first  question,  namely,  by  what  authority  they 
called  him  before  them. 

This  was  indeed  the  question  that  the  king  put,  and 
would  never  let  drop.  It  had  been  Sidney's  question, 
and  so  far  as  law  and  constitution  went,  there  was  no 
good  answer  to  it.  The  authority  of  the  tribunal  was 
founded  upon  nothing  more  valid  than  a  mere  reso- 
lution, called  an  ordinance,  of  some  fifty  members — 
what  vyras  in  truth  little  more  than  a  bare  quorum — of 


268  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

a  single  branch  of  Parliament,  originally  composed  of 
nearly  ten  times  as  many,  and  deliberately  reduced  for 
the  express  purpose  of  such  a  resolution  by  the  violent 
exclusion  a  month  before  of  one  hundred  and  forty- 
three  of  its  members.  If  the  legal  authority  was  null, 
the  moral  authority  for  the  act  creating  the  High 
Court  was  no  stronger.  It  might  be  well  enough  to 
say  that  the  people  are  the  origin  of  power,  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact  the  handful  who  erected  the  High  Court 
of  Justice  notoriously  did  not  represent  the  people  in 
any  sense  of  that  conjurer's  word.  They  were  never 
chosen  by  the  people  to  make  laws  apart  from  king  and 
lords ;  and  they  were  now  picked  out  by  the  soldiers  to 
do  the  behest  of  soldiers. 

In  short,  the  High  Court  of  Justice  was  hardly  better 
or  worse  than  a  drumhead  court-martial,  and  had  just 
as  much  or  just  as  little  legal  authority  to  try  King 
Charles,  as  a  board  of  officers  would  have  had  to  try 
him  under  the  orders  of  Fairfax  or  Oliver  if  they  had 
taken  him  prisoner  on  the  field  of  Xaseby.  Bishop 
Butler,  in  his  famous  sermon  in  1741  on  the  anni- 
versary of  the  martyrdom  of  King  Charles,  takes 
hypocrisy  for  his  subject,  and  declares  that  no  age  can 
show  an  example  of  hypocrisy  parallel  to  such  a  pro- 
faning of  the  forms  of  justice  as  the  arraignment  of 
the  king.  And  it  is  here  that  Butler  lets  fall  the  som- 
ber reflection,  so  poignant  to  all  who  vainly  expect  too 
much  from  the  hearts  and  understanding  of  mankind, 
that  ''the  history  of  all  ages  and  all  countries  will  show 
what  has  been  really  going  forward  over  the  face  of 
the  earth,  to  be  very  different  from  what  has  been 
always  pretended ;  and  that  virtue  has  been  everywhere 
professed  much  more  than  it  has  been  anywhere  prac- 
tised." We  may.  if  we  be  so  minded,  accept  Butler's 
general  reflection,  and  assuredly  it  cannot  lightly  be 


John  Bradsliaw 


C:3^:   3TA-^^MtrZ.    ^ 


'\^\. 


/fit  AiUo_^ro/>h  from  an  Oru/ina/  t'n  tAe  Aifit/ri^n  ,f 
John  Thaiie. 


From  Clarendon's  "  History  of  the  Civil  War,"  in  the  Hope  Collection, 
-■■•-■■  ■     ■  -----         ■      of  Oxford. 


Bodleian  Library,  by  permission  of  the  University 


THE    DEATH    OF    THE    KING  269 

dismissed ;  but  it  is  hardly  the  best  explanation  of  this 
particular  instance.  Self-deception  is  a  truer  as  well 
as  a  kinder  word  than  hypocrisy,  and  here  in  one  sense 
the  institution  of  something  with  the  aspect  of  a  court 
was  an  act  of  homage  to  conscience  and  to  habit  of  law. 
Many  must  have  remembered  the  clause  in  the  Petition 
of  Right,  not  yet  twenty  years  old,  forbidding  martial 
law.  Yet  martial  law' this  was  and  nothing  else,  if 
that  be  the  name  for  uncontrolled  arbitrament  of  the 
man  with  the  sword. 

In  outer  form  as  in  interior  fact,  the  trial  of  the  king 
had  much  of  the  rudeness  of  the  camp,  little  of  the 
solemnity  of  a  judicial  tribunal.  The  pathetic  element 
so  strong  in  human  nature,  save  when  rough  action 
summons ;  that  imaginative  sensibility,  which  is  the 
fountain  of  pity  when  there  is  time  for  tears,  and  lei- 
sure to  listen  to  the  heart;  these  counted  for  nothing  in 
that  fierce  and  peremptory  hour.  Such  moods  are  for 
history  or  for  onlookers  in  stern  scenes,  not  for  the 
actors.  Charles  and  Cromwell  had  both  of  them  long 
stood  too  close  to  death  in  many  grisly  shapes,  had 
seen  too  many  slaughtered  men,  to  shrink  from  an  en- 
counter without  quarter.  Westminster  Hall  was  full 
of  soldiery,  and  resounded  with  their  hoarse  shouts 
for  justice  and  execution.  The  king  with  his  hat  upon 
his  head  eyed  the  judges  with  unaffected  scorn,  and 
with  unmeaning  iteration  urged  his  point,  that  they 
were  no  court  and  that  he  was  there  by  no  law.  Brad- 
shaw,  the  president,  retorted  with  high-handed  warn- 
ings to  his  captive  that  contumacy  would  be  of  no 
avail.  Cromwell  was  present  at  every  sitting  with 
one  doubtful  exception.  For  three  days  the  alterca- 
tion went  on,  as  fruitless  as  it  was  painful,  for  the 
court  intended  that  the  king  should  die.  He  was  in- 
credulous to  the  last.     On  the  fourth  and  fifth  days 


270  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

(January  24-25)  the  court  sat  in  private  in  the  Painted 
Chamber,  and  Hstened  to  depositions  that  could  prove 
nothing  not  ah-eady  fully  knov^ai.  The  object  was  less 
to  satisfy  the  conscience  of  the  court,  than  to  make 
time  for  pressure  on  its  more  backward  members. 
There  is  some  evidence  that  Cromwell  was  among  the 
most  fervid  in  enforcing  the  point  that  they  could  not 
come  to  a  settlement  of  the  true  religion  until  the  king, 
the  arch  obstructor,  was  put  out  of  the  way.  On  the 
next  day  (January  26)  the  court,  numbering  sixty-two 
members,  adopted  the  verdict  and  sentence  that  Charles 
was  a  tyrant,  traitor,  murderer,  and  public  enemy  to 
the  good  people  of  this  nation,  and  that  he  should  be 
put  to  death  by  the  severing  of  his  head  from  his  body. 
On  the  27th  an  end  came  to  the  proceedings.  Charles 
was  for  the  fourth  time  brought  into  the  hall,  and  amid 
much  noise  and  disorder  he  attempted  to  speak.  He 
sought  an  interview  with  the  Lords  and  Commons  in 
the  Painted  Chamber,  but  this  after  deliberation  was 
refused.  The  altercations  between  the  king  and  Brad- 
shaw  were  renewed,  and  after  a  long  harangue  from 
Bradshaw  sentence  was  pronounced.  The  king,  still 
endeavoring  in  broken  sentences  to  make  himself  heard, 
was  hustled  away  from  the  hall  by  his  guards.  The 
composure,  piety,  seclusion,  and  silence  in  which  he 
passed  the  three  days  of  life  that  were  left,  made  a  deep 
impression  on  the  time,  and  have  moved  men's  com- 
mon human-heartedness  ever  since.  In  Charles  him- 
self, whether  for  foe  or  friend,  an  Eliot  or  a  Strafford, 
pity  was  a  grace  unknown. 

On  the  fatal  day  (January  30)  he  was  taken  to 
Whitehall,  now  more  like  a  barrack  than  a  palace. 
Fairfax,  Cromwell,  Ireton,  and  Harrison  were  prob- 
ably all  in  the  building  when  he  arrived,  though  the 
first  of  them  had  held  stiffly  aloof  from  all  the  pro- 


THE    DEATH    OF    THE    KING  271 

ceedings  of  the  previous  ten  days.  A  story  was  told 
afterward  that  just  before  the  execution,  Cromwell, 
seated  in  Ireton's  room,  when  asked  for  a  warrant  ad- 
dressed to  the  executioner  (who  seems  to  have  been 
Brandon,  the  common  hangman),  wrote  out  the  order 
with  his  own  hand  for  signature  by  one  of  the  three  offi- 
cers to  whom  the  High  Court  had  addressed  the  actual 
death-warrant.  Charles  bore  himself  with  unshaken 
dignity  and  fortitude  to  the  end.  At  a  single  stroke 
the  masked  headman  did  his  work.  Ten  days  later  the 
corpse  was  conveyed  by  a  little  band  of  devoted  friends 
to  Windsor,  where  amid  falling  flakes  of  snow  they 
took  it  into  Saint  George's  Chapel.  Clarendon  stamps 
upon  our  memories  the  mournful  coldness,  the  squalor, 
and  the  desolation  like  a  scene  from  some  grey  under- 
world : — ''Then  they  went  into  the  church  to  make 
choice  of  a  place  for  burial.  But  when  they  entered 
into  it,  which  they  had  been  so  well  acquainted  with, 
they  found  it  so  altered  and  transformed,  all  tombs, 
inscriptions,  and  those  landmarks  pulled  down  by 
which  all  men  knew  every  particular  place  in  that 
church,  and  such  a  dismal  mutilation  over  the  whole 
that  they  knew  not  where  they  were ;  nor  was  there  one 
old  officer  that  had  belonged  to  it,  or  knew  where  our 
princes  had  used  to  be  interred.  At  last  there  was  a 
fellow  of  the  town  who  undertook  to  tell  them  the 
place,  where,  he  said,  'there  was  a  vault  in  which  King 
Harry  the  Eighth  and  Queen  Jane  Seymour  were  in- 
terred.' As  near  that  place  as  could  conveniently  be, 
they  caused  the  grave  to  be  made.  There  the  king's 
body  was  laid  without  any  words,  or  other  ceremonies 
than  the  tears  and  sighs  of  the  few  beholders.  Upon 
the  coffin  was  a  plate  of  silver  fixed  with  these  words 
only — King  Charles,  1648.  When  the  coffin  was  put 
in,  the  black  velvet  pall  that  had  covered  it  was  thrown 


272  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

over  it,  and  then  the  earth  thrown  in,  which  the  gover- 
nor stayed  to  see  perfectly  done,  and  then  took  the  keys 
of  the  church,  which  was  seldom  put  to  any  use." 

Cromwell's  own  view  of  this  momentous  transaction 
was  constant.  A  year  later  he  speaks  to  the  officers 
of  "the  great  fruit  of  the  war,  to  wit,  the  execution  of 
exemplary  justice  upon  the  prime  leader  of  all  this 
quarrel."  Many  months  after  this,  he  talks  of  the 
turning-out  of  the  tyrant  in  a  way  which  the  Chris- 
tians in  after  times  will  mention  with  honor,  and  all 
tyrants  in  the  world  look  at  with  fear ;  many  thousands 
of  saints  in  England  rejoice  to  think  of  it ;  they  that 
have  acted  in  this  great  business  have  given  a  reason  of 
their  faith  in  the  action,  and  are  ready  further  to  do  it 
against  all  gainsayers.  The  execution  was  an  eminent 
witness  of  the  Lord  for  blood-guiltiness.  In  a  con- 
versation again,  one  evening,  at  Edinburgh,  he  is  said 
to  have  succeeded  in  converting  some  hostile  Presby- 
terians to  the  view  that  the  taking  away  of  the  king's 
life  was  inevitable.  There  is  a  story  that  while  the 
corpse  of  the  king  still  lay  in  the  gallery  at  Whitehall, 
Cromwell  was  observed  by  unseen  watchers  to  come 
muffled  in  his  cloak  to  the  coffin,  and  raising  the  lid, 
and  gazing  on  the  face  of  the  king,  was  heard  to  mur- 
mur several  times,  "Cruel  necessity.'^  The  incident  is 
pretty  certainly  apocryphal,  for  this  was  not  the  dialect 
of  Oliver's  philosophy. 

Extravagant  things  have  been  said  about  the  exe- 
cution of  the  king  by  illustrious  men  from  Charles  Fox 
to  Carlyle.  "We  may  doubt,"  says  Fox,  "whether  any 
other  circumstance  has  served  so  much  to  raise  the 
character  of  the  English  nation  in  the  opinion  of 
Europe."  "This  action  of  the  English  regicides,"  says 
Carlyle,  "did  in  effect  strike  a  damp-like  death  through 
the   heart   of   Flunkyism    universally   in    this    world. 


From  the  original  portrait  by  Van  Dyck  in  the  Louvre  (detail). 
CHARLES    L 


THE    DEATH    OF    THE    KING  273 

Whereof  Flunkyism,  Cant,  Cloth-worship,  or  what- 
ever ugly  name  it  have,  has  gone  about  miserably  sick 
ever  since,  and  is  now  in  these  generations  very  rapidly 
dying."  Cant,  alas,  is  not  slain  on  any  such  easy 
terms  by  a  single  stroke  of  the  republican  headsman's 
axe.  As  if  for  that  matter  force,  violence,  sword,  and 
axe,  never  conceal  a  cant  and  an  unveracity  of  their 
own,  viler  and  crueller  than  any  other.  In  fact,  the 
very  contrary  of  Carlyle's  proposition  as  to  death  and 
damp  might  more  fairly  be  upheld.  For  this  at  least 
is  certain,  that  the  execution  of  Charles  I  kindled  and 
nursed  for  many  generations  a  lasting  flame  of  cant, 
flunkyism,  or  whatever  else  be  the  right  name  of 
spurious  and  unmanly  sentimentalism,  more  lively 
than  is  associated  with  any  other  business  in  our  whole 
national  history. 

The  two  most  sensible  things  to  be  said  about  the 
trial  and  execution  of  Charles  I  have  often  been  said 
before.  One  is  that  the  proceeding  was  an  act  of  war, 
and  was  just  as  defensible  or  just  as  assailable,  and  on 
the  same  grounds,  as  the  war  itself.  The  other  re- 
mark, though  tolerably  conclusive  alike  by  Milton  and  by 
Voltaire,  is  that  the  regicides  treated  Charles  precisely 
as  Charles,  if  he  had  won  the  game,  undoubtedly  prom- 
ised himself  with  law  or  without  law  that  he  would 
treat  them.  The  author  of  the  attempt  upon  the  Five 
Members  in  1642  was  not  entitled  to  plead  punctilious 
demurrers  to  the  revolutionary  jurisdiction.  From  the 
first  it  had  been  My  head  or  thy  head,  and  Charles  had 
lost. 


BOOK    FOUR 


'Boo\\  font 

CHAPTER   I 

THE    COMMONWEALTH 

THE  death  of  the  king  made  nothing  easier,  and 
changed  nothing  for  the  better ;  it  removed  no  old 
difficuhies,  and  it  added  new.  Cromwell  and  his  allies 
must  have  expected  as  much,  and  they  confronted  the 
task  with  all  the  vigilance  and  energy  of  men  unalter- 
ably convinced  of  the  goodness  of  their  cause,  confi- 
dently following  the  pillar  of  cloud  by  day,  the  pillar 
of  fire  by  night.  Their  goal  was  the  establishment  of 
a  central  authority;  the  unification  of  the  kingdoms; 
the  substitution  of  a  nation  for  a  dynasty  as  the  main- 
spring of  power  and  the  standard  of  public  aims ;  a  set- 
tlement of  religion,  the  assertion  of  maritime  strength ; 
the  protectional  expansion  of  national  commerce. 
Long,  tortuous,  and  rough  must  be  the  road.  A  small 
knot  of  less  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  commoners  repre- 
sented all  that  was  left  of  Parliament,  and  we  have  a 
test  of  the  condition  to  which  it  was  reduced  in  the 
fact  that  during  the  three  months  after  Pride's  Purge, 
the  thirteen  divisions  that  took  place  represented  an 
average  attendance  of  less  than  sixty.  They  resolved 
that  the  House  of  Peers  was  useless  and  dangerous  and 
ought  to  be  abolished.  They  resolved  a  couple  of  days 
later  that  experience  had  shown  the  office  of  a  king, 
and  to  have  the  power  of  the  office  in  any  single  per- 
son to  be  unnecessary,  burdensome,  and  dangerous,. 
277 


278  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

and  therefore  that  this  also  ought  to  be  abolished.  In 
March  these  resolutions  were  turned  into  what  were 
called  acts  of  Parliament.  A  Council  of  State  was 
created  to  which  the  executive  power  was  entrusted. 
It  consisted  of  forty  persons  and  was  to  last  a  year, 
three  fourths  t)f  its  members  being  at  the  same  time 
members  of  Parliament.  Provision  was  made  for  the 
administration  of  justice  as  far  as  possible  by  the  ex- 
isting judges,  and  without  change  in  legal  principles 
or  judicial  procedure.  On  May  19th  a  final  act  was 
passed  proclaiming  England  to  be  a  free  common- 
wealth, to  be  governed  by  the  representatives  of  the 
people  in  Parliament  without  king  or  House  of  Lords. 
Writs  were  to  run  in  the  name  of  the  Keepers  of  the 
Liberties  of  England.  The  date  was  marked  as  the 
First  Year  of  Freedom  by  God's  blessing  restored. 

We  can  hardly  suppose  that  Cromwell  was  under 
any  illusion  that  constitutional  resolutions  on  paper 
could  transmute  a  revolutionary  group,  installed  by 
military  force  and  by  that  force  subsisting,  into  a 
chosen  body  of  representatives  of  the  people  adminis- 
tering a  free  commonwealth.  He  had  striven  to  come 
to  terms  with  the  king  in  1647,  ^'""^^  ^^^d  been  reluc- 
tantly forced  into  giving  him  up  in  1648.  He  was 
now  accepting  a  form  of  government  resting  upon  the 
same  theoretical  propositions  that  he  had  stoutly  com- 
bated in  the  camp  debates  two  years  before,  and  subject 
to  the  same  ascendancy  of  the  soldier  of  which  he  had 
then  so  clearly  seen  all  the  fatal  mischief.  But  Crom- 
well was  of  the  active,  not  the  reflective  temper. 
What  he  saw  was  that  the  new  government  had  from 
the  first  to  fight  for  its  life.  All  the  old  elements  of 
antagonism  remained.  The  Royalists,  outraged  in 
their  deepest  feelings  by  the  death  of  their  lawful  king, 
had  instantly  transferred  their  allegiance  with  height- 
ened fervor  to  his  lawful  successor.     The  Presbyte- 


THE    COMMONWEALTH  279 

rians  who  were  also  Royalist  were  exasperated  both  by 
the  failure  of  their  religious  schemes,  and  by  the  sting 
of  political  and  party  defeat.  The  peers,  though  only 
a  few  score  in  number,  yet  powerful  by  territorial  in- 
fluence, were  cut  to  the  quick  by  the  suppression  of 
their  legislative  place.  The  Episcopal  clergy,  from  the 
highest  ranks  in  the  hierarchy  to  the  lowest,  suffered 
with  natural  resentment  the  deprivation  of  their  spirit- 
ual authority  and  their  temporal  revenues.  It  was 
calculated  that  the  friends  of  the  policy  of  intolerance 
were  no  less  than  five  sevenths  of  the  people  of  the 
country.  Yet  the  Independents,  though  so  inferior 
in  numbers,  w^ere  more  important  than  either  Presby- 
terians or  Episcopalians,  for  the  reason  that  their  powder 
was  concentrated  in  an  omnipotent  army.  The  move- 
ment named  generically  after  them,  comprised  a  hun- 
dred heterogeneous  shades,  from  the  grand  humanism 
of  Milton  down  to  the  fancies  of  whimsical  mystics 
who  held  that  it  was  sin  to  wear  garments,  and  believed 
that  heaven  is  only  six  miles  off.  The  old  quarrel 
about  church  polity  was  almost  overwhelmed  by  tur- 
bid tides  of  theological  enthusiasm.  This  enthusiasm 
developed  strange  theocracies,  nihilisms,  anarchies, 
and  it  soon  became  one  of  the  most  pressing  tasks  of 
the  new  republic,  as  afterward  of  Cromwell  himself, 
to  grapple  with  the  political  danger  that  overflowed 
from  the  heavings  of  spiritual  confusion.  A  Royalist 
of  the  time  thus  describes  the  position : — "The  Inde- 
pendents possessed  all  the  forts,  tow^ns,  navy  and  trea- 
sure; the  Presbyterians  yet  hold  a  silent  power  by 
means  of  the  divines,  and  the  interest  of  some  nobility 
and  gentry,  especially  in  London  and  the  great  towns. 
His  Majesty's  party  in  England  is  so  poor,  so  dis- 
jointed, so  severely  watched  by  both  factions,  that  it  is 
impossible  for  them  to  do  anything  on  their  owm  score." 
The  other  two  ancient  kingdoms  that  were  joined  to 


28o  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

the  new-born  State  of  England,  were  each  of  them 
centers  of  hostihty  and  peril  to  the  common  fabric. 
On  the  continent  of  Europe,  the  new  rulers  of  Eng- 
land had  not  a  friend;  even  the  Dutch  were  drawn 
away  from  them  by  a  powerful  Orange  party  that  was 
naturally  a  Stuart  party.  It  seemed  as  if  an  accident 
might  make  a  hostile  foreign  combination  possible, 
and  almost  as  if  only  a  miracle  could  prevent  it. 
Rupert  had  possessed  himself  of  a  small  fleet,  the  Roy- 
alists were  masters  of  the  Isle  of  Man,  of  Jersey  and 
the  Scilly  Isles,  and  English  trade  was  the  prey  of 
their  piratical  enterprise.  The  Commonwealth  had 
hardly  counted  its  existence  by  weeks,  before  it  was 
menaced  by  deadly  danger  in  its  very  foundations, 
by  signs  of  an  outbreak  in  the  armed  host,  now 
grown  to  over  forty  thousand  men  that  had  destroyed 
the  king,  mutilated  the  Parliament,  and  fastened 
its  yoke  alike  upon  the  Parliamentary  remnant,  the 
Council  of  State,  and  the  majority  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  realm.  Natural  right,  law  of  nature,  one  He 
as  good  as  another  He,  the  reign  of  Christ  and  his 
saints  in  a  fifth  and  final  monarchy,  all  the  rest  of  the 
theocratic  and  leveling  theories  that  had  startled  Crom- 
well in  1647,  were  found  to  be  just  as  applicable 
against  a  military  commonwealth  as  against  a  king  by 
divine  right.  The  cry  of  the  political  leveler  was  led 
by  Lilburne.  one  of  the  men  whom  all  revolutions  are 
apt  to  engender — intractable,  narrow,  dogmatic,  prag- 
matic, clever  hands  at  syllogisms,  liberal  in  uncharitable 
imputation  and  malicious  construction,  honest  in  their 
rather  questionable  way,  animated  by  a  pharisaic  love 
of  self-applause  which  is  in  truth  not  any  more  meri- 
torious nor  any  less  unsafe  than  vain  love  of  the 
world's  applause;  in  a  word,  not  without  sharp  in- 
sight into  theoretic  principle,   and  thinking  quite  as 


THE    COMMONWEALTH  281 

little  of  their  own  ease  as  the  ease  of  others,  but  with- 
out a  trace  of  the  instinct  for  government  or  a  grain  of 
practical  common  sense.  Such  was  Lilburne  the  head- 
strong, and  such  the  temper  in  thousands  of  others 
with  whom  Cromwell  had  painfully  to  wrestle  for  all 
the  remainder  of  his  life.  The  religious  enthusiasts, 
who  formed  the  second  great  division  of  the  impracti- 
cable, were  more  attractive  than  the  scribblers  of  ab- 
stract politics,  but  they  were  just  as  troublesome.  A 
reflective  Royalist  or  Presbyterian  might  well  be 
excused  for  asking  himself  whether  a  party,  with  men 
of  this  stamp  for  its  mainspring,  could  ever  be  made 
fit  for  the  great  art  of  working  institutions,  and  con- 
trolling the  forces  of  a  mighty  state.  Lilburne's  popu- 
larity, which  was  immense,  signified  not  so  much  any 
general  sympathy  with  its  first  principles  or  his  rest- 
less politics,  as  aversion  to  military  rule  or  perhaps 
indeed  to  any  rule.  If  the  mutiny  spread,  and  the 
army  broke  away,  the  men  at  the  head  of  the  govern- 
ment knew  that  all  was  gone.  They  acted  with  celer- 
ity and  decision.  Fairfax  and  Cromwell  handled  the 
mutineers  with  firmness  tempered  by  clemency,  with- 
out either  vindictiveness  or  panic.  Of  the  very  few 
who  suffered  military  execution,  some  were  made  pop- 
ular martyrs — and  this  was  an  indication  the  more 
how  narrow  was  the  base  on  which  the  Commonwealth 
had  been  reared.  Other  dangers  came  dimly  into 
view.  For  a  moment  it  seemed  as  if  political  revolu- 
tion was  to  contain  the  seeds  of  social  revolution ; 
Levelers  were  followed  by  Diggers.  War  had  wasted 
the  country  and  impoverished  the  people,  and  one  day 
(April,  1650)  a  small  company  of  poor  men  were 
found  digging  up  the  ground  on  St.  George's  Hill  in 
Surrey,  sowing  it  with  carrots  and  beans,  and  announc- 
ing that  they  meant  to  do  away  with  all  enclosures. 


282  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

It  was  the  reproduction  in  the  seventeenth  century  of 
the  story  of  Robert  Kett  of  Norfolk  in  the  sixteenth. 
The  eternal  sorrows  of  the  toiler  led  him  to  dream,  as 
in  the  dawn  of  the  Reformation  peasants  had  dreamed, 
that  the  Bible  sentences  had  for  them,  too,  some  sig- 
nificance. "At  this  very  day,"  wrote  Winstanley,  a 
neglected  figure  of  those  times,  "poor  people  are  forced 
to  work  for  twopence  a  day,  and  corn  is  dear.  And 
the  tithing  priest  stops  their  mouth,  and  tells  them  that 
"inward  satisfaction  of  mind"  was  meant  by  the  decla- 
ration :  The  poor  shall  inherit  the  earth.  I  tell  you  the 
Scripture  is  to  be  really  and  materially  fulfilled.  You 
jeer  at  the  name  Leveler.  I  tell  you  Jesus.  Christ  is 
the  head  Leveler."  (Gooch,  p.  220.)  Fairfax  and 
the  council  wisely  made  little  of  the  affair,  and  people 
awoke  to  the  hard  truth  that  to  turn  a  monarchy  into 
a  free  commonwealth  is  not  enough  to  turn  the  purga- 
tory of  our  social  life  into  a  paradise.  Meanwhile  the 
minority  possessed  of  power  resorted  to  the  ordinary 
devices  of  unpopular  rule.  They  levied  immense  fines 
upon  the  property  of  delinquents,  sometimes  confiscat- 
ing as  much  as  half  the  value.  A  rigorous  censorship 
of  the  press  was  established.  The  most  diligent  care 
was  enjoined  upon  the  local  authorities  to  prevent  trou- 
blesome public  meetings.  The  pulpits  were  watched, 
that  nothing  should  be  said  in  prejudice  of  the  peace 
and  honor  of  the  government.  The  old  law  of  treason 
was  stiffened,  but  so  long  as  trial  by  jury  was  left,  the 
hardening  of  the  statute  was  of  little  use.  The  High 
Court  of  Justice  was  therefore  set  up  to  deal  with 
offenders  for  whom  no  law  was  strong  enough. 

The  worst  difficulties  of  the  government,  however, 
lay  beyond  the  reach  of  mere  rigor  of  police  at  home. 
Both  in  Ireland  and  Scotland  the  regicide  common- 
wealth found  foes.     All  the  three  kingdoms  were  in 


THE  COMMONWEALTH  283 

a  blaze.  The  prey  of  insurrection  in  Ireland  had  lent 
fuel  to  rebellion  in  England,  and  the  flames  of  rebellion 
in  England  might  have  been  put  out,  but  for  the  neces- ' 
sities  of  revolt  in  Scotland.  The  statesmen  of  the 
Commonwealth  misunderstood  the  malady  in  Ireland, 
and  they  failed  to  found  a  stable  system  in  Britain ;  but 
they  grasped  with  amazing  vigor  and  force  the  prob- 
lem of  dealing  with  the  three  kingdoms  as  a  whole. 
This  strenuous  comprehension  marked  them  out  as 
men  of  originality,  insight,  and  power.  Charles  II 
was  in  different  fashions  instantly  proclaimed  king  in 
both  countries,  and  the  only  question  was  from  which 
of  the  two  outlying  kingdoms  would  the  new  king 
wage  war  against  the  rulers  who  had  slain  his  father, 
and  usurped  the  powers  that  were  by  law  and  right  his 
own.  Ireland  had  gone  through  strange  vicissitudes 
during  the  years  of  the  civil  struggle  in  England.  It 
has,  been  said  that  no  human  intellect  could  make  a 
clear  story  of  the  years  of  triple  and  fourfold  distraction 
in  Ireland  from  the  rebellion  of  1641  down  to  the  death 
of  Charles  I.  Happily  it  is  not  necessary  for  us  to 
attempt  the  task.  Three  remarkable  figures  stand  out 
conspicuously  in  the  chaotic  scene.  Ormonde  repre- 
sented in  varied  forms  the  English  interest,  one  of  the 
most  admirably  steadfast,  patient,  clear-sighted  and 
honorable  names  in  the  list  of  British  statesmen. 
Owen  Roe  O'Neill,  a  good  soldier,  a  man  of  valor  and 
character,  was  the  patriotic  champion  of  Catholic  Ire- 
land. Rinuccini,  the  Pope's  nuncio, — an  able  and  am- 
bitious man,  ultramontane,  caring  very  little  for  either 
Irish  landlords  or  Irish  Nationalists,  caring  not  at  all 
for  heretical  Royalists,  but  devoted  to  the  interests  of 
his  church  all  over  the  world. — was  in  his  heart  bent 
upon  erecting  a  papal  Ireland  under  the  protection  of 
some  foreign  Catholic  sovereign. 


284  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

All  these  types,  though  with  obvious  differences  on 
the  surface,  may  easily  be  traced  in  Irish  affairs  down 
to  our  own  century.  The  nearest  approach  to  an 
organ  of  Government  was  the  supreme  council  of  the 
confederate  Catholics  at  Kilkenny,  in  which  the  sub- 
stantial interest  was  that  of  the  Catholic  English  of 
the  Pale.  Between  them  and  the  nuncio  little  love 
was  lost,  for  Ireland  has  never  been  ultramontane. 
A  few  days  before  the  death  of  the  king  (January, 
1649)  Ormonde  made  what  promised  to  be  a  prudent 
peace  with  the  Catholics  at  Kilkenny,  by  which  the 
confederate  Irish  were  reconciled  to  the  crown,  on  the 
basis  of  complete  toleration  for  their  religion  and  free- 
dom for  their  Parliament.  It  was  a  great  and  lasting 
misfortune  that  Puritan  bigotry  prevented  Oliver  from 
pursuing  the  same  policy  on  behalf  of  the  common- 
wealth as  Ormonde  pursued  on  behalf  of  the  king. 
The  confederate  Catholics,  long  at  bitter  feud  with  the 
ultramontane  nuncio,  bade  him  intermeddle  no  more 
with  the  affairs  of  that  kingdom ;  and  a  month  after 
the  peace  Rinuccini  departed. 

It  was  clear  that  even  such  small  hold  as  the  Parlia- 
ment still  retained  upon  Ireland  was  in  instant  peril. 
The  old  dread  of  an  Irish  army  being  landed  upon  the 
western  shores  of  England  in  the  Royalist  interest, 
possibly  in  more  or  less  concert  with  invaders  from 
Scotland,  revived  in  full  force.  Cromwell's  view  of 
the  situation  was  explained  to  the  Council  of  State 
at  Whitehall  (March  23,  1649).  The  question  was 
wdiether  he  would  undertake  the  Irish  command.  "If 
we  do  not  endeavor  to  make  good  our  interest  there," 
he  said,  after  describing  the  singular  combination  that 
Ormonde  was  contriving  against  them,  "we  shall  not 
only  have  our  interests  rooted  out  there,  but  they  will 
in  a  very  short  time  be  able  to  land  forces  in  England. 


From  a  pastel  portrait  by  Sir  Peter  Lely  in  the  Irish  N.ilional  Portrait 
Gallery,  by  permission  of  the  Director. 

JAMES    BUTLER,  TWELFTH    EARL   AND    FIRST    DUKE    OF    ORMONDE. 


THE    COMMONWEALTH  285 

I  confess  I  had  rather  be  overrun  with  a  CavaHerish 
interest  than  a  Scotch  interest ;  1  had  rather  be  overrun 
with  a  Scotch  interest  than  an  Irish  interest;  and  I 
think,  of  all,  this  is  the  most  dangerous."  Stating  the 
same  thing  differently  he  argued  that  even  Englishmen 
who  were  for  a  restoration  upon  terms,  ought  still  to 
resist  the  forced  imposition  of  a  king  upon  them  either 
by  Ireland  or  by  Scotland.  In  other  words,  the  con- 
test between  the  crown  and  the  Parliament  had  now 
developed  into  a  contest,  first  for  union  among  the 
three  kingdoms,  and  next  for  the  predominance  of 
England  within  that  union.  Of  such  antique  date  are 
some  modern  quarrels. 


CHAPTER  II 


CROMWELL    IN    IRELAND 


IT  is  not  enough  to  describe  one  who  has  the  work 
of  a  statesman  to  do  as  "a  veritable  Heaven's  mes- 
senger clad  in  thunder."  We  must  still  recognize  that 
the  reasoning  faculty  in  man  is  good  for  something. 
"I  could  long  for  an  Oliver  without  Rhetoric  at  all," 
Carlyle  exclaims,  "I  could  long  for  a  Mahomet,  whose 
persuasive  eloquence  with  wild  flashing  heart  and  sim- 
itar, is :  'Wretched  mortal,  give  up  that ;  or  by  the 
Eternal,  thy  maker  and  mine,  I  will  kill  thee!  Thou 
blasphemous,  scandalous  Misbirth  of  Nature,  is  not 
even  that  the  kindest  thing  I  can  do  for  thee,  if  thou 
repent  not  and  alter,  in  the  name  of  Allah?'  "  Even 
such  sonorous  oracles  as  these  do  not  altogether  escape 
the  guilt  of  Rhetoric.  As  if,  after  all,  there  might  not 
be  just  as  much  of  sham,  phantasm,  emptiness,  and  lies 
in  Action  as  in  Rhetoric.  Archbishop  Laud  with  his 
wild  flashing  simitar  slicing  off  the  ears  of  Prynne. 
Charles  maliciously  doing  Eliot  to  death  in  the  Tower, 
the  familiars  of  the  Holy  Office,  Spaniards  exterminating 
hapless  Indians,  English  Puritans  slaying  Irishwomen 
at  Xaseby.  the  monarchs  of  the  Spanish  peninsula 
driving  populations  of  Jews  and  Moors  wholesale  and 
innocent  to  exile  and  despair — all  these  would  deem 
themselves  entitled  to  hail  their  hapless  victims  as  blas- 
])hemous  Misbirths  of  Nature.  What  is  the  test? 
286 


CROMWELL   IN   IRELAND  287 

How  can  we  judge?  The  Dithyrambic  does  not  help 
us.  It  is  not  a  question  between  Action  and  Rhetoric, 
but  the  far  profounder  question  aHke  in  word  and  in 
deed  between  just  and  unjust,  rational  and  short- 
sighted, cruel  and  humane. 

The  Parliament  faced  the  Irish  danger  with  char- 
acteristic energy,  nor  would  Cromwell  accept  the  com- 
mand without  characteristic  deliberation.  "Whether 
I  go  or  stay,"  he  said,  "is  as  God  shall  incline  my 
heart."  And  he  had  no  leading  of  this  kind,  until  he 
had  in  a  practical  way  made  sure  that  his  forces  would 
have  adequate  provision,  and  a  fair  settlement  of 
arrears.  The  departure  of  Julius  Caesar  for  Gaul  at  a 
moment  when  Rome  was  in  the  throes  of  civil  confu- 
sion, has  sometimes  been  ascribed  to  a  desire  to  make 
the  west  a  drill-ground  for  his  troops,  in  view  of  the 
military  struggle  that  he  foresaw  approaching  in  Italy. 
Motives  of  a  similar  sort  have  been  invented  to  explain 
Oliver's  willingness  to  absent  himself  from  Westmin- 
ster at  critical  hours.  The  explanation  is  probably  as 
far-fetched  in  one  case  as  in  the  other.  The  self-inter- 
est of  the  calculating  statesman  would  hardly  prompt 
a  distant  and  dangerous  military  expedition,  for  Crom- 
well knew,  as  he  had  known  when  he  started  for  Pres- 
ton in  1648,  what  active  enemies  he  left  behind  him, 
some  in  the  ranks  of  the  army,  others  comprehending 
the  whole  of  the  Presbyterian  party,  and  all  embittered 
by  the  triumph  of  the  military  force  to  which  instru- 
mentally  they  owed  their  very  existence.  The  sim- 
plest explanation  is  in  Oliver's  case  the  best.  A  sol- 
dier's work  was  the  next  work  to  be  done,  and  he  might 
easily  suppose  that  the  God  of  Battles  meant  him  to 
do  it.     Everybody  else  supposed  the  same. 

It  was  August  (  1649)  before  Cromwell  embarked, 
and  before  sailing,  "he  did  expound  some  places  of 


288  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

Scripture  excellently  well,  and  pertinent  to  the  occa- 
sion." He  arrived  in  Dublin  as  Lord  Lieutenant  and 
commander  of  the  forces.  After  a  short  time,  for  the 
refreshment  of  his  weather-beaten  men,  he  advanced 
northward,  some  ten  thousand  strong,  to  Drogheda, 
and  here  his  Irish  career  began  with  an  incident  of  un- 
happy fame.  Modern  research  adds  little  in  the  way 
either  of  correction  or  of  amplification  to  Cromwell's 
own  story.  He  arrived  before  Drogheda  on  September 
3d.  the  memorable  date  of  three  other  decisive  days  in 
his  history.  A  week  later  he  summoned  Ormond's 
garrison  to  surrender,  and  receiving  no  reply  he  opened 
fire,  and  breached  the  wall  in  two  places.  The  next 
day,  about  five  in  the  evening,  he  began  the  storm,  and 
after  a  hot  and  stiff  defense  that  twice  beat  back  his 
veterans,  on  the  third  assault,  with  Oliver  himself  at 
the  head  of  it,  they  entered  the  town  and  were  masters 
of  the  Royalist  entrenchments.  Aston,  the  general  in 
command,  scoured  up  a  steep  mound,  "a  place  very 
strong  and  of  difficult  access ;  being  exceedingly  high, 
having  a  good  graft,  and  strongly  palisaded."  He 
had  some  three  hundred  men  w^ith  liim,  and  to  storm 
his  position  would  have  cost  several  hundreds  of  lives. 
A  parley  seems  to  have  taken  place,  and  Aston  was  per- 
suaded to  disarm  by  a  Cromwellian  band  who  had  pur- 
sued him  up  the  steep.  At  this  point  Cromwell  ordered 
that  they  should  all  be  put  to  the  sword.  It  was  done. 
Then  came  another  order.  "Being  in  the  heat  of 
action,  I  forbade  them  to  spare  any  that  were  in  arms 
in  the  town;  and  I  think  that  night  they  put  to  the 
sword  about  two  thousand  men;  divers  of  the  officers 
and  soldiers  being  fled  over  the  bridge  into  the  other 
(the  northern)  part  of  the  town."  Eighty  of  them 
took  refuge  in  the  steeple  of  St.  Peter's  church ;  and 
others  in  the  towers  at  two  of  the  gates.     "Whereon  I 


CROMWELL   IN   IRELAND  289 

ordered  the  church  steeple  to  be  fired,  when  one  of 
them  was  heard  to  say,  'God  damn  me,  God  confound 
me;  I  burn,  I  burn/  "  Of  the  eighty  wretches  in  the 
steeple,  fifty  were  slain  and  thirty  perished  in  the 
flames.  Cromwell  notes  with  particular  satisfaction 
what  took  place  at  St.  Peter's  church.  "It  is  remark- 
able," he  says,  "that  these  people  had  grown  so  inso- 
lent that  the  last  Lord's  Day,  before  the  storm,  the 
Protestants  were  thrust  out  of  the  great  church  called 
St.  Peter's,  and  they  had  public  Mass  there ;  and  in  this 
very  place,  near  one  thousand  of  them  were  put  to  the 
sword,  fleeing  thither  for  safety."  Of  those  in  one  of 
the  towers,  when  they  submitted,  "their  officers  were 
knocked  on  the  head,  and  every  tentli  man  of  the  sol- 
diers killed,  and  the  rest  shipped  for  the  Barbadoes. 
The  soldiers  in  the  other  tower  were  all  spared  as  to 
their  lives  only,  and  shipped  likewise  for  the  Barba- 
does." Even  when  time  might  have  been  expected 
to  slake  the  sanguinary  frenzy,  officers  in  hiding  were 
sought  out  and  killed  in  cold  blood.  "All  the  friars," 
says  Cromwell,  "were  knocked  on  the  head  promiscu- 
ously but  two.  The  enemy  were  about  three  thou- 
sand strong  in  the  town.  I  believe  we  put  to  the  sword 
the  whole  number  of  the  defendants.  I  do  not  think 
thirty  of  the  whole  number  escaped  with  their  lives." 
These  three  thousand  were  killed,  with  a  loss  of  only 
sixty-four  to  those  who  killed  them. 

Such  is  the  unvarnished  tale  of  the  Drogheda  mas- 
sacre. Its  perpetrator  himself  felt  at  the  first  moment 
when  "the  heat  of  action"  had  passed,  that  it  needed 
justification.  "Such  actions,"  he  says,  "cannot  but 
work  remorse  and  regret."  unless  there  be  satisfactory 
grounds  for  them,  and  the  grounds  that  he  alleges  are 
two.  One  is  revenge,  and  the  other  is  policy.  "I  am 
persuaded  that  this  is  a  righteous  judgment  of  God 


290  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

upon  those  barbarous  wretches,  who  have  imbrued 
their  hands  in  so  much  innocent  blood ;  and  that  it  will 
tend  to  prevent  the  effusion  of  blood  in  the  future." 
And  then  comes  a  theory  of  the  divine  tactics  in  these 
operations,  which  must  be  counted  one  of  the  most 
wonderful  of  all  the  recorded  utterances  of  Puritan  tlie- 
ology.  "And  now  give  me  leave  to  say  how  it  comes  to 
pass  that  this  work  is  wrought.  It  was  set  upon  some 
of  our  hearts,  that  a  great  thing  should  be  done,  not  by 
power  or  might,  but  by  the  spirit  of  God.  And  is  it 
not  so,  clearly  ?  That  which  caused  your  men  to  storm 
so  courageously,  it  was  the  spirit  of  God,  w^ho  gave 
your  men  courage  and  took  it  away  again  ;  and  gave  the 
enemy  courage,  and  took  it  away  again ;  and  gave  your 
men  courage  again,  and  therewith  this  happy  success. 
And  therefore  it  is  good  that  God  alone  have  all  the 
glory." 

That  Cromwell's  ruthless  severity  may  have  been 
justified  by  the  strict  letter  of  the  military  law  of  the 
time,  is  just  possible.  It  may  be  true,  as  is  contended, 
that  this  slaughter  was  no  worse  than  some  of  the 
worst  acts  of  those  commanders  in  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  whose  names  have  ever  since  stood  out  in  crim- 
son letters  on  the  page  of  European  history  as  bywords 
of  cruelty  and  savagery.  That,  after  all,  is  but  dubi- 
ous extenuation.  Though  he  may  have  had  a  technical 
right  to  give  no  quarter  where  a  storm  had  followed 
the  refusal  to  surrender,  in  England  this  right  was 
only  used  by  him  once  in  the  w^iole  course  of  the  w^ar, 
and  in  his  own  defense  of  the  massacre  it  was  not  upon 
military  right  that  he  chose  to  stand.  The  language 
used  by  Ludlow  about  it  shows  that  even  in  the  opinion 
of  that  time  what  was  done  needed  explanation.  'The 
slaughter  was  continued  all  day  and  the  next,"  he  says, 
"which  extraordinary  severity,  I  presume,  was  used  to 


CROMWELL   IN   IRELAND  291 

discourage  others  from  making  opposition."  This,  as  we 
have  seen,  was  one  of  the  two  explanations  given  by 
OHver  himself.  The  general  question,  how  far  in  such 
a  case  the  end  warrants  the  means,  is  a  question  of 
military  and  Christian  ethics  which  it  is  not  for  us  to 
discuss  here,  but  we  may  remind  the  reader  that  not  a 
few  of  the  most  barbarous  enormities  in  human  annals 
have  been  excused  on  the  same  ground,  that  in  the  long 
run  the  gibbet,  stake,  torch,  sword,  and  bullet  are  the 
truest  mercy,  sometimes  to  men's  lives  here,  sometimes 
to  their  souls  hereafter.  No  less  equivocal  was  Crom- 
well's second  plea.  The  massacre,  he  says,  was  a 
righteous  vengeance  upon  the  wretches  who  had  im- 
brued their  hands  in  so  much  innocent  blood  in  Ulster 
eight  years  before.  Yet  he  must  have  known  that  of 
the  three  thousand  men  w^ho  were  butchered  at  Drog- 
heda,  of  the  friars  who  were  knocked  on  the  head  pro- 
miscuously, and  of  the  officers  who  were  killed  in  cold 
blood,  not  a  single  victim  was  likely  to  have  had  part 
or  lot  in  the  Ulster  atrocities  of  1641.  More  than  one 
contemporary  authority  (including  Ludlow  and  Clar- 
endon) says  the  garrison  w'as  mostly  English,  and 
undoubtedly  a  contingent  was  English  and  Protestant. 
The  better  opinion  on  the  whole  now  seems  to  be  that 
most  of  the  slain  men  were  Irish  and  Catholic,  but  that 
they  came  from  Kilkenny  and  other  parts  of  the  coun- 
try far  outside  of  Ulster,  and  so  were  "in  the  highest 
degree  unlikely  to  have  had  any  hand  in  the  Ulster 
massacre"  of  1641. 

Again  that  the  butchery  of  Drogheda  did  actually 
prevent  in  any  marked  degree  further  effusion  of 
blood  is  not  clear.  Cromwell  remained  in  Ireland 
nine  months  longer,  and  the  war  was  not  extinguished 
for  two  years  after  his  departure.  The  nine  months  of 
his  sojourn  in  the  country  were  a  time  of  unrelaxing 


292  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

effort  on  one  side,  and  obstinate  resistance  on  the  other. 
From  Drogheda  he  marched  south  to  Wexford.  The 
garrison  made  a  good  stand  for  several  days,  but  at  last 
were  compelled  to  parley.  A  traitor  during  the  parley 
yielded  up  the  castle,  and  the  L^ish  on  the  walls  with- 
drew into  the  town.  "Which  our  men  perceiving,  ran 
violently  upon  the  town  with  their  ladder  and  stormed 
it.  And  when  they  were  come  into  the  market-place, 
the  enemy  making  a  stiff  resistance,  our  forces  broke 
them;  and  then  put  all  to  the  sword  that  came  in  their 
way.  I  believe  in  all  there  was  lost  of  the  enemy  not 
many  less  than  two  thousand,  and  I  believe  not  twenty 
of  ours  from  first  to  last  of  the  siege."  The  town  was 
sacked,  and  priests  and  friars  were  again  knocked  on 
the  head,  some  of  them  in  a  Protestant  chapel  which 
they  had  been  audacious  enough  to  turn  into  a  Mass- 
house.  For  all  this  Cromwell  was  not  directly  respon- 
sible as  he  had  been  at  Drogheda.  "Indeed  it  hath, 
not  without  cause,  been  set  upon  our  hearts,  that  we, 
intending  better  to  this  place  than  so  great  a  ruin,  hop- 
ing the  town  might  be  of  more  use  to  you  and  your 
army,. yet  God  would  not  have  it  so;  but  by  an  unex- 
pected providence  in  his  righteous  justice,  brought  a 
just  judgment  upon  them,  causing  them  to  become  a 
prey  to  the  soldier,  who  in  their  piracies  had  made 
preys  of  so  many  families,  and  now  with  their  bloods 
to  answer  the  cruelties  which  they  had  exercised  upon 
the  lives  of  divers  poor  Protestants." 

A  heavy  hand  was  laid  upon  southern  Ireland  all 
through  Cromwell's  stay.  Gowran  was  a  strong 
castle,  in  command  of  a  Kentishman,  a  principal  actor 
in  the  Kentish  insurrection  of  1648.  He  returned  a 
resolute  refusal  to  Cromwell's  invitation  to  surrender 
(  March,  1650).  The  batteries  were  opened,  and  after 
a  short  parley  a  treaty  was  made,  the  soldiers  to  have 


CROMWELL   IN   IRELAND  293 

quarter,  the  officers  to  be  treated  as  the  victors  might 
think  fit.  The  next  day  the  officers  were  shot,  and  a 
popish  priest  was  hanged.  In  passing,  we  may  ask  in 
face  of  this  hanging  of  chaplains  and  promiscuous 
knocking  of  friars  on  the  head,  what  is  the  significance 
of  Cromwell's  challenge  to  produce  "an  instance  of 
one  man  since  my  coming  to  Ireland,  not  in  arms, 
massacred,  destroyed,  or  banished?" 

The  effect  of  the  massacre  of  Drogheda  was  cer- 
tainly transient.  As  we  ha\'e  seen,  it  did  not  frighten 
the  commandant  at  Wexford,  and  the  resistance  that 
Cromwell  encountered  during  the  winter  at  Ross,  Dun- 
cannon,  Waterford,  Kilkenny,  and  Clonmel  was  just 
such  as  might  have  been  looked  for,  if  the  garrison  of 
Drogheda  had  been  treated  like  a  defeated  garrison  at 
Bristol,  Taunton,  or  Reading.  At  Clonmel,  which 
came  last,  resistance  was  most  obdurate  of  all.  The 
bloody  lesson  of  Drogheda  and  Wexford  had  not  been 
learned.  "They  found  in  Clonmel  the  stoutest  enemy 
this  army  had  ever  met  in  Ireland ;  and  there  never  was 
seen  so  hot  a  storm,  of  so  long  continuance,  and  so  gal- 
lantly defended,  either  in  England  or  Ireland."  Crom- 
well lost  over  two  thousand  men.  The  garrison 
running  short  of  ammunition  escaped  in  the  night,  and 
the  subsequent  surrender  of  the  town  (May  10,  1650) 
was  no  more  than  a  husk  without  a  kernel. 

The  campaign  made  heavy  demands  upon  the  vigor 
of  the  Parliamentary  force.  A  considerable  part  of 
the  army  was  described  as  fitter  for  an  hospital  than 
a  field.  Not  one  officer  in  forty  escaped  the  dysentery, 
which  they  called  the  disease  of  the  country.  Crom- 
well himself  suffered  a  long  attack  of  sickness.  These 
distresses  and  difficulties  much  perplexed  him.  "In 
the  midst  of  our  good  successes."  he  says,  "wherein 
the  kindness  and  mercy  of  God  hath  appeared,   the 


294  OLIVER  CROMWELL 


himself,  hath  interlaced  some  things  which  may  give 
us  cause  of  serious  consideration  what  His  mind  there- 
in may  be.  .  .  .  You  see  how  God  mingles  out 
the  cup  unto  us.  Indeed,  we  are  at  this  time  a  crazy 
company; — yet  we  live  in  His  sight,  and  shall  work  the 
time  that  is  appointed  us,  and  shall  rest  after  that  in 
peace." 

His  general  policy  is  set  out  by  Cromwell  in  a  docu- 
ment of  cardinal  importance,  and  it  sheds  too  much 
light  upon  his  Irish  policy  to  be  passed  over.  The 
Catholic  prelates  met  at  Clonmacnoise,  and  issued  a 
manifesto  that  only  lives  in  history  for  the  sake  of 
Cromwell's  declaration  in  reply  to  it  (January,  1650). 
This  has  been  called  by  our  great  transcendental  eulo- 
gist one  of  the  most  remarkable  state  papers  ever  pub- 
lished in  Ireland  since  Strongbow  or  even  since  St. 
Patrick.  Perhaps  it  is,  for  it  combines  in  a  unique 
degree  profound  ignorance  of  the  Irish  past  with  a 
profound  miscalculation  of  the  Irish  future.  'T  will 
give  you  some  wormwood  to  bite  upon,"  says  Oliver, 
and  so  he  does.  Yet  it  is  easy  now  to  see  that  the  prel- 
ates were  in  fact,  from  the  Irish  point  of  view,  hitting 
the  nail  upon  the  head,  while  Oliver  goes  to  work  with 
a  want  of  insight  and  knowledge  that  puts  his  Irish 
statesmanship  far  below  Strafford's.  The  prelates 
warned  their  flocks  that  union  in  their  own  ranks  was 
the  only  thing  that  could  frustrate  the  Parliamentary 
design  to  extirpate  their  religion,  to  massacre  or  banish 
the  Catholic  inhabitants,  and  to  plant  the  land  with 
English  colonies.  This  is  exactly  what  Clement 
Walker,  the  Puritan  historian  of  Independency,  tells 
us.  "The  Independents  in  the  Parliament,"  he  says, 
"insisted  openly  to  have  the  papists  of  Ireland  rooted 
out  and  their  lands  sold  to  adventurers."     Meanwhile, 


CROMWELL   IN    IRELAND  295 

Oliver  flies  at  them  with  extraordinary  fire  and  energy 
of  language,  blazing  with  the  polemic  ot  the  time. 
After  a  profuse  bestowal  of  truculent  compliments, 
deeply  tinged  with  what  in  our  days  is  known  as  the 
Orange  hue,  he  comes  to  the  practical  matter  in  hand, 
but  not  until  he  has  drawn  one  of  the  most  daring  of 
all  the  imaginary  pictures  that  English  statesmen  have 
ever  drawn  of  Ireland.  "Remember,  ye  hypocrites,  Ire- 
land \vas  once  united  to  England.  Englishmen  had 
good  inheritances  which  many  of  them  purchased  with 
their  money ;  they  and  their  ancestors  from  you  and 
your  ancestors.  They  lived  peaceably  and  honestly 
among  you.  You  had  generally  equal  benefit  of  the 
protection  of  England  with  them;  and  equal  justice 
from  the  laws — saving  what  w^as  necessary  for  the 
state,  out  of  reasons  of  state,  to  put  upon  few  people 
apt  to  rebel  upon  the  instigation  of  such  as  you.  You 
broke  this.  You,  unprovoked,  put  the  English  to  the 
most  unheard  of,  and  most  barbarous  massacre  that 
ever  the  sun  beheld." 

As  if  Cromwell  had  not  stood  by  the  side  of  Pym  in 
his  denunciations  of  Strafford  in  all  their  excess  and  all 
their  ignorance  of  Irish  conditions,  precisely  for  syste- 
matic violation  of  English  law  and  the  spirit  of  it 
throughout  his  long  government  of  Ireland.  As  if 
Clare's  famous  sentence  at  the  Union  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  later  about  confiscation  JDcing  the  common 
title,  and  the  English  settlement  hemmed  in  on  every 
side  by  the  old  inhabitants  brooding  over  their  discon- 
tents in  sullen  indignation,  were  at  any  time  more  true 
of  Ireland  than  in  these  halcyon  days  of  Cromwell's 
imagination.  As  if  what  he  calls  the  equal  benefit  of 
the  protection  of  England  had  meant  anything  but 
fraud,  chicane,  plunder,  neglect  and  oppression,  ending 
in  that  smoldering  rage,  misery,  and  despair  which 


296  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

Cromwell  so  ludicrously  describes  as  the  deep  peace 
and  union  of  a  tranquil  sheepfold,  only  disturbed  by 
the  ravening  greed  of  the  priestly  wolves  of  Rome. 

As  for  religion,  after  some  thin  and  heated  quibbling 
about  the  word  "extirpate."  he  lets  them  know  with  all 
plainness  what  he  means  to  do.  "I  shall  not,  where  I 
have  power,  and  the  Lord  is  pleased  to  bless  me,  suffer 
the  exercise  of  the  Mass.  Nor  suffer  you  that  are  Pa- 
pists, where  I  can  find  you  seducing  the  people,  or  by 
any  overt  act  violating  the  laws  established.  As  for  the 
people,  what  thoughts  in  the  matter  of  religion  they 
have  in  their  own  breasts,  I  cannot  reach;  but  shall 
think  it  my  duty,  if  they  walk  honestly  and  peaceably, 
not  to  cause  them  in  the  least  to  suffer  for  the  same." 
To  pretend  that  he  was  not  "meddling  whh  any  man's 
conscience"  when  he  prohibited  the  central  rite  of  the 
Catholics,  and  all  the  ministrations  by  the  clergy  on 
those  occasions  of  life  where  conscience  under  lawful 
penalties  demanded  them,  was  as  idle  as  if  the  Cath- 
olics had  pretended  that  they  did  not  meddle  with  con- 
science if  they  forbade  the  possession  or  use  of  the 
Bible,  or  hunted  Puritan  preachers  out  of  all  the 
pulpits. 

"We  come."  he  proceeds,  "by  the  assistance  of  God 
to  hold  forth  and  maintain  the  luster  and  glory  of  Eng- 
lish liberty  in  a  nation  where  we  have  an  undoubted 
right  to  do  it;  wherein  the  people  of  Ireland  (if  they 
listen  not  to  such  seducers  as  you  are)  may  equally 
participate  in  all  benefits;  to  use  liberty  and  fortune 
equally  with  Englishmen  if  they  keep  out  of  arms." 
It  is  true  enough  that  the  military  conquest  of  Ire- 
land was  an  indispensable  preliminary  to  any  healing 
policy.  Nor  in  the  prostrate  and  worn-out  condition 
of  Ireland  after  ten  years  of  such  confusion  as  has  not 
often  been  seen  on  our  planet,  could  military  conquest 


CROMWELL  IN   IRELAND  297 

though  tedious  be  difficult.  If  the  words  just  quoted 
were  to  have  any  meaning,  Cromwell's  policy,  after 
the  necessary  subjugation  of  the  country,  ought  to  have 
been  to  see  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  should 
enjoy  both  their  religion  and  their  lands  in  peace.  If  he 
had  been  strong  enough  and  enlightened  enough  to  try 
such  a  policy  as  this,  there  might  have  been  a  Cromwel- 
lian  settlement  indeed.  As  it  was,  the  stern  and  haughty 
assurances  with  which  he  wound  up  his  declaration  "for 
the  Undeceiving  of  Deluded  and  Seduced  People"  were 
to  receive  a  dreadful  interpretation,  and  in  this  lies  the 
historic  pith  of  the  whole  transaction. 

The  Long  Parliament  deliberately  contemplated  exe- 
cutions on  so  merciless  a  scale  that  it  was  not  even' 
practicable.  But  many  hundreds  were  put  to  death. 
The  same  Parliament  was  originally  responsible  for 
the  removal  of  the  population,  not  so  wholesale  as  is 
sometimes  supposed,  but  still  enormous.  All  this 
Cromwell  sanctioned  if  he  did  not  initiate.  Confis- 
cation of  the  land  proceeded  over  a  vast  area.  Im- 
mense tracts  were  handed  over  to  the  adventurers  who 
had  advanced  money  to  the  government  for  the  pur- 
poses of  the  war,  and  immense  tracts  to  the  Crom- 
wellian  soldiery  in  discharge  of  arrears  of  pay.  The 
old  proprietors  were  transplanted  with  every  circum- 
stance of  misery  to  the  province  west  of  the  Shannon, 
to  the  wasted  and  desperate  wilds  of  Connaught. 
Between  thirty  and  forty  thousand  of  the  Irish  were 
permitted  to  go  to  foreign  countries,  where  they  took 
service  in  the  armies  of  Spain,  France,  Poland.  When 
Jamaica  was  taken  from  Spain  in  1655,  Oliver,  ardent 
for  its  successful  plantation,  requested  Henry  Crom- 
well, then  in  Ireland,  to  engage  fifteen  hundred  sol- 
diers to  settle,  and  to  send  a  thousand  Irishwomen 
with  them ;  and  we  know  from  Thurloe  that  ships  were 


298  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

made  ready  for  the  transportation  of  the  boys  and  girls 
whom  Henry  was  forcibly  collecting.  Whether  the 
design  was  carried  further  we  do  not  know.  Strange 
to  say,  the  massacre  in  the  valleys  of  Piedmont  in 
1655  increased  the  bitterness  of  the  Dublin  govern- 
ment and  of  the  Protestant  generals  toward  the  un- 
happy Irish.  Fleetwood  says:  "The  officers  of  the 
army  here  are  very  sensible  of  the  horrid  cruelties  in 
the  massacre  of  the  poor  Protestants  in  the  Duke  of 
Savoy's  dominions.  ...  It  was  less  strange  to 
us  when  we  heard  that  the  insatiable  Irish  had  a 
hand  in  that  bloodshed."  The  rigors  of  transplan- 
tation became  more  severe.  Of  all  these  doings  in 
Cromwell's  Irish  chapter,  each  of  us  may  say  what  he 
will.  Yet  to  every  one  it  will  at  least  be  intelligible 
how  his  name  has  come  to  be  hated  in  the  tenacious 
heart  of  Ireland.  What  is  called  his  settlement  aggra- 
vated Irish  misery  to  a  degree  that  cannot  be  measured, 
and  before  the  end  of  a  single  generation  events  at 
Limerick  and  the  Boyne  showed  how  hollow  and  in- 
effectual, as  well  as  how  mischievous  the  Cromwell ian 
settlement  had  been.  Strafford  too  had  aimed  at  the 
incorporation  of  Ireland  with  England,  at  plantation  by 
English  colonists,  and  at  religious  uniformity  within 
a  united  realm.  But  Strafford  had  a  grasp  of  the 
complications  of  social  conditions  in  Ireland  to  which 
Cromwell  could  not  pretend.  He  knew  the  need  of 
time  and  management.  A  Puritan,  armed  with  a  mus- 
ket and  the  Old  Testament,  attempting  to  reconstruct 
the  foundations  of  a  community  mainly  Catholic,  was 
sure  to  end  in  clumsy  failure,  and  to  this  clumsy  failure 
no  appreciation  of  Oliver's  greatness  should  blind 
rational  men.  One  partial  glimpse  into  the  root  of 
the  matter  he  unmistakably  had.  "These  poor  people," 
he  said  (December,  1649), "have  been  accustomed  to  as 


CROMWELL   IN   IRELAND  299 

much  injustice,  tyranny,  andoppression  from  their  land- 
lords, the  great  men,  and  those  who  should  have  done 
them  right,  as  any  people  in  that  which  we  call  Christ- 
endom. Sir,  if  justice  were  freely  and  impartially 
administered  here,  the  foregoing  darkness  and  corrup- 
tion would  make  it  look  so  much  the  more  glorious  and 
beautiful,  and  draw  more  hearts  after  it."  This  was 
Oliver's  single  glimpse  of  the  main  secret  of  the  ever- 
lasting Irish  question;  it  came  to  little,  and  no  other 
English  ruler  had  so  much  for  many  generations 
afterward. 


CHAPTER   III 


IN    SCOTLAND 


IT  was  the  turn  of  Scotland  next.  There  the  Com- 
monwealth of  England  was  wholly  without  friends. 
Religious  sentiment  and  national  sentiment,  so  far  as 
in  that  country  they  can  be  conceived  apart,  combined 
against  a  government  that  in  the  first  place  sprang 
from  the  triumphs  of  Sectaries  over  Presbyterians, 
and  the  violent  slaying  of  a  lawful  Scottish  king;  and, 
in  the  second  place,  had  definitely  substituted  a  prin- 
ciple of  toleration  for  the  milk  of  the  covenanted  word. 
The  pure  Royalist,  the  pure  Covenanter,  the  men  who 
were  both  Royalists  and  fervid  Presbyterians,  those 
who  had  gone  with  Montrose,  those  who  went  with 
Argyll,  the  Engagers  whom  Cromwell  had  routed  at 
Preston,  W'higgamores,  nobles,  and  clergy  all  abhorred 
the  new  English  system  which  dispelled  at  the  same 
time  both  golden  dreams  of  a  Presbyterian  king  ruling 
over  a  Presbyterian  people,  and  constitutional  visions 
of  the  sway  of  the  legitimate  line.  The  spirit  of  intes- 
tine faction  was  redhot,  but  the  wiser  Scots  knew  by 
instinct  that  the  struggle  before  them  was  at  bottom 
as  much  a  struggle  for  independent  national  existence, 
as  it  had  been  in  the  days  of  Wallace  and  Bruce. 
Equally  the  statesmen  of  the  Commonwealth  felt  the 
impossibility  of  establishing  their  own  rule  over  the 
host  of  malcontents  in  England,  until  they  had  sup- 
300 


IN    SCOTLAND  301 

pressed  a  hostile  Scotland.  The  alliance  between  the 
two  neighboring  nations  which  ten  years  before  had 
arisen  from  religious  feeling  in  one  and  military  needs 
in  the  other,  had  now  by  slow  stages  become  a  struggle 
for  national  predominance  and  a  great  consolidated 
state.  The  proclamation  of  Charles  II  at  Edinburgh, 
the  long  negotiations  with  him  in  Holland,  his  surren- 
der to  the  inexorable  demand  that  he  should  censure 
his  father  for  resisting  the  Reformation,  and  his  mother 
for  being  an  idolatress,  that  he  should  himself  turn 
Covenanter,  and  finally  his  arrival  on  the  soil  of  Scot- 
land, all  showed  that  no  time  was  to  be  lost  if  the  union 
of  the  kingdoms  was  to  be  saved. 

An  express  messenger  was  sent  to  Ireland  by  the 
Council  of  State  in  ]\Iarch  (1650)  to  let  Cromwell 
know  that  affairs  were  urgent,  and  that  they  desired 
his  presence  and  assistance.  He  did  not  arrive  until 
the  first  of  June.  He  was  saluted  with  joyful  accla- 
mation on  every  side,  from  the  magnanimous  Fairfax 
down  to  the  multitudes  that  thronged  the  approaches  to 
Westminster.  Both  Parliament  and  the  City  gave  him 
formal  thanks  for  his  famous  services  in  Ireland ; 
which  being  added  to  the  laurels  of  his  English  vic- 
tories, "crowned  him  in  the  opinion  of  all  the  world  for 
one  of  the  wisest  and  most  accomplished  leaders  among 
the  present  and  past  generations."  As  against  a 
popish  Ireland,  all  English  parties  were  united. 

It  was  now  that  Fairfax,  the  brave  and  skilful  com- 
mander, but  too  wanting  in  the  sovereign  qualities  of 
decision  and  initiative  to  guide  the  councils  of  a  revo- 
lution, disappeared  from  conspicuous  place.  While 
Cromwell  was  in  Ireland,  Fairfax  had  still  retained 
the  office  of  lord-general,  and  Cromwell  himself  Avas 
now  undoubtedly  sincere  in  his  urgency  that  the  old 
arrang:ement  should  continue.     Amoner  other  reasons 


302  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

the  presence  of  Fairfax  was  a  satisfaction  to  that  Pres- 
byterian interest  against  whose  active  enmity  the  Com- 
monwealth could  hardly  stand.  Fairfax  had  always 
shown  himself  a  man  of  scruple.  After  a  single  at- 
tendance he  had  absented  himself  from  the  trial  of  the 
king,  and  in  the  same  spirit  of  scruple  he  refused  the 
command  of  the  army  destined  for  the  invasion  of  Scot- 
land, on  the  ground  that  invasion  would  be  a  breach 
of  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant.  Human  prob- 
al)ilities,  he  said,  are  not  sufficient  ground  to  make  war 
upon  a  neighbor  nation.  The  point  may  seem  minute 
in  modern  eyes ;  but  in  Fairfax  at  least  moral  punctilio 
had  no  association  with  disloyalty  either  to  his 
powerful  comrade  or  to  the  Commonwealth.  Crom- 
well was  at  once  (June  26)  appointed  to  be  captain- 
general  and  commander-in-chief. 

The  Scottish  case  was  essentially  different  from  the 
case  of  Ireland,  and  the  national  quarrel  was  definitely 
described  by  Oliver.  To  Ireland  he  had  gone  to  ex- 
act vengeance,  to  restore  some  sort  of  framework  to  a 
society  shattered  even  to  dissolution,  and  to  wage  war 
against  the  practice  of  a  hated  creed.  V^ery  different 
from  his  truculence  against  Irish  prelates  was  his  ear- 
nest appeal  to  the  General  x\ssembly  in  Scotland.  'T 
beseech  you,"  he  said, — enjoining  a  lesson  that  of  all 
lessons  mankind  are  everywhere  least  willing  to  learn, 
— "I  beseech  you,  think  it  possible  you  may  be  mis- 
taken." He  protested  that  they  wished  well  to  the 
honest  people  of  Scotland  as  to  their  own  souls,  "it 
being  no  part  of  our  business  to  hinder  any  of  them 
from  worshiping  God  in  that  way  they  are  satisfied  in 
their  conscience  by  the  word  of  God  they  ought."  It 
was  the  political  incoherencies  of  the  Scots  that  forced 
the  war  upon  England.  They  pretended,  he  told  them, 
that  to  impose  a  king  upon  England  was  the  cause  of 


IN    SCOTLAND  303 

God,  and  the  satisfaction  of  God's  people  in  both  coun- 
tries. Yet  this  king,  who  now  professed  to  submit  to 
the  co^'enant,  had  at  that  very  moment  a  popish  army 
fighting  under  his  orders  in  Ireland. 

The  political  exposure  was  unanswerable,  and  Crom- 
well spared  no  trouble  to  bring  it  home  to  the  minds 
of  the  godly.  But  the  clergy  hindered  the  passage  of 
these  things  to  the  hearts  of  those  to  whom  he  intended 
them — a  deceived  clergy,  "meddling  with  worldly  poli- 
cies and  mixtures  of  earthly  power,  to  set  up  that 
which  they  call  the  Kingdom  of  Christ."  Theirs  was 
no  Kingdom  of  Christ,  and  if  it  were,  no  such  means 
as  worldly  policy  would  be  effectual  to  set  it  up :  it  is 
the  sword  of  the  Spirit  alone  that  is  powerful  for  the 
setting  up  of  that  kingdom.  This  mystic  spirituality, 
ever  the  indwelling  essence  of  Cromwell's  faith,  struck 
no  response  in  the  dour  ecclesiastics  to  whom  he  was 
speaking.  However  all  this  might  be,  the  battle  must 
be  fought.  To  have  a  king  imposed  by  Scotland 
would  be  better  than  one  imposed  by  Ireland,  but  if 
malignants  were  destined  to  win,  it  were  better  to  have 
a  restoration  by  English  cavaliers  than  by  Scottish 
Presbyters,  inflamed  by  spiritual  pride  and  sodden  in 
theological  arrogance.  At  a  critical  hour,  six  years 
later,  Cromwell  deprecated  despondency,  and  the  argu- 
ment was  as  good  now  as  then.  "We  are  English- 
men; that  is  one  good  fact.  And  if  God  gave  a 
nation  valor  and  courage,  it  is  honor  and  a  mercy." 
It  was  upon  this  national  valor  and  courage  that  he 
now  counted,  and  the  crowning  mercy  of  Worcester 
in  the  autumn  of  165 1  justified  him.  But  many 
sombre  episodes  intervened. 

Cromwell  (July  22)  crossed  the  northern  border 
with  a  force  of  some  sixteen  thousand  men.  For  five 
weeks,  until  the  end  of  August,  he  was  involved  in  a 


304  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

series  of  manoeuvers,  extremely  complicated  in  detail, 
and  turning  on  a  fruitless  attempt  to  draw  the  Scots 
out  of  a  strong  and  skilfully  entrenched  position  in 
Edinburgh,  and  to  force  them  to  an  engagement  in  the 
open.  The  general  was  David  Leslie,  who  six  years 
ago  had  rendered  such  valiant  and  timely  service  on 
the  day  of  Marston  Moor.  He  knew  that  time, 
weather,  and  scarcity  of  supplies  must  wear  Cromwell 
out  and  compel  him  to  recross  the  border,  and  Leslie's 
skill  and  steadfastness,  in  the  absence  of  any  of  those 
rapid  and  energetic  blows  that  usually  marked  Crom- 
well's operations,  ended  in  complete  success.  "There 
is  an  impossibility,"  said  Fleetwood,  "in  our  forcing 
them  to  fight — the  passes  being  so  many  and  so  great 
that  as  soon  as  we  go  on  the  one  side,  they  go  over  on 
the  other."  The  English  force  retreated  to  Dunbar,  a 
shattered,  hungry,  discouraged  host  now  some  ten  or 
eleven  thousand  in  number.  Leslie,  with  a  force  twice 
as  numerous,  bent  southward  to  the  hills  that  over- 
look Dunbar,  and  there  Cromwell  was  hemmed  in.  The 
Scots  were  in  high  spirits  at  thus  cutting  him  off  from 
Berwick.  "In  their  presumption  and  arrogance  they 
had  disposed  of  us  and  of  their  business,  in  sufficient  re- 
\-enge  and  wrath  toward  our  persons ;  and  had  swal- 
lowed up  the  poor  interest  of  England ;  believing  that 
their  army  and  their  king  would  have  marched  to  Lon- 
don without  any  mterruption."  This  was  indeed  the 
issue — a  king  restored  by  the  Ultras  of  the  Scottish 
church,  with  a  new  struggle  in  England  between  Ma- 
lignants  and  Presbyterians  to  follow  after.  "We  lay 
very  near  him,"  says  Oliver,  "being  sensible  of  our  dis- 
advantage, having  some  weakness  of  flesh,  but  yet  con- 
solation and  support  from  the  Lord  himself  to  our  poor 
weak  faith.  That  because  of  their  numbers,  because 
of  their  advantage,  because  of  their  confidence,  because 


From  a  print  in  the  British  Museum  of  a  portrait  by  Sir  Peter  Lely,  in  the 
collection  of  the  Duke  of  Hamilton. 

DAVID   LESLIE,  FIRST   LORD   NEWARK. 


IN    SCOTLAND  305 

of  our  weakness,  because  of  our  strait,  we  were  in  the 
Mount,  and  in  the  Mount  of  the  Lord  he  would  be  seen ; 
and  that  he  would  find  a  way  of  deliverance  and  salva- 
tion for  us ;  and  indeed  we  had  our  consolations  and  our 
hopes."  This  was  written  after  the  event;  but  a  note 
written  on  September  2d  to  the  governor  of  Newcastle, 
shows  with  even  more  reality  into  how  desperate  a 
position  he  felt  that  Leslie's  generalship  had  driven 
him.  "We  are  upon  an  engagement  very  difficult. 
The  enemy  hath  blocked  up  our  way  at  the  Pass  at 
Copperspath,  through  which  we  cannot  get  without 
almost  a  miracle.  He  lieth  so  upon  the  hills,  that  we 
know  not  how  to  come  that  way  without  great  diffi- 
culty; and  our  lying  here  daily  consumeth  our  men, 
who  fall  sick  beyond  imagination.  Whatever  becomes 
of  us,  it  will  be  well  for  you  to  get  what  forces  you  can 
together;  and  the  south  to  help  what  they  can.  The 
business  nearly  concerneth  all  good  people.  If  your 
forces  had  been  here  in  a  readiness  to  have  fallen  upon 
the  back  of  Copperspath,  it  might  have  occasioned  sup- 
plies to  come  to  us.  All  shall  work  for  good.  Our 
spirits  are  comfortable,  praised  be  the  Lord — though 
our  present  condition  be  as  it  is."  History  possesses 
no  finer  picture  of  the  fortitude  of  the  man  of  action, 
with  eyes  courageously  open  to  dark  facts  closing 
round  him,  yet  with  alacrity,  vigilance,  and  a  kind  of 
cheerful  hope,  taking  thought  for  every  detail  of  the 
business  of  the  day.  Where  the  purpose  is  lofty  and 
unselfish,  this  is  indeed  moral  greatness. 

Whether  Leslie's  idea  was  to  allow  the  English  to 
retreat  until  they  were  engaged  in  the  pass,  and  then 
to  fall  upon  them  in  the  rear ;  or  to  drive  them  slowly 
across  the  border  in  humiliation  and  disgrace,  we  can- 
not tell.  No  more  can  we  tell  for  certain  whether 
Cromwell  still  held  to  his  first  project  of  fortifying 


3o6  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

Dunbar,  or  intended  at  all  costs  to  cut  his  way  through. 
Leslie  had  naturally  made  up  his  mind  that  the  English 
must  either  move  or  surrender,  and  in  either  case  if 
he  remained  on  the  heights  victory  was  his.  Unluck- 
ily for  him,  he  was  forced  from  his  resolve,  either  by 
want  of  water,  provisions,  and  shelter  for  his  force,  or 
else  by  the  impatience  of  his  committee,  mainly  min- 
isters, who  were  weary  of  his  triumphant  Fabian 
strategy,  and  could  not  restrain  their  exultation  at  the 
sight  of  the  hated  Sectaries  lying  entrapped  at  their 
feet,  shut  in  between  the  sea  at  their  back  and  a  force 
twice  as  strong  as  them  in  front,  with  another  force 
cutting  them  ofif  from  the  south  in  a  position  that  one 
man  could  hold  against  forty.  Their  minds  were  full 
of  Saul,  Amalekites,  Moabites,  the  fords  of  Jordan, 
and  all  the  rest  of  it,  just  as  Oliver  was  full  of  the 
Mount  of  the  Lord,  taking  care,  however,  never  to  let 
texts  do  duty  for  tactics.  In  an  evil  moment  on  the 
morning  of  September  2d  the  Scots  began  to  descend 
the  hill  and  to  extend  themselves  on  the  ledge  of  a 
marshy  glen  at  the  foot.  Cromwell  walking  about  with 
Lambert,  with  a  watchful  eye  for  the  hills,  discerned 
the  unexpected  motions.  "I  told  the  major-general," 
says  Cromwell,  "I  thought  it  did  give  us  an  opportunity 
and  advantage  to  attempt  upon  the  enemy.  To  which 
he  immediately  replied,  that  he  had  thought  to  have 
said  the  same  thing  to  me.  So  that  it  pleased  the  Lord 
to  set  this  apprehension  upon  both  of  our  hearts  at  the 
instant."  They  called  for  Monk;  then  going  to  their 
quarters  at  night  they  all  held  a  council  of  war,  and 
explained  their  plans  to  some  of  the  colonels,  and  these 
cheerfully  concurred.  Leslie's  move  must  mean  either 
an  immediate  attack,  or  a  closer  blockade;  in  either 
case,  the  only  chance  was  to  be  first  to  engage.  They 
determined  to  fall  on  at  daybreak,  though  as  it  hap- 


IN    SCOTLAND  307 

pened  the  battle  did  not  open  before  six  (September  3). 
The  weather  was  wet  and  stormy.  The  voice  of 
prayer  and  preaching  sounding  through  the  night- 
watches  showed  the  piety  and  confirmed  the  confidence 
of  the  EngHsh  troopers.  The  Scots  sought  sheher 
behind  the  shocks  of  corn,  against  the  wind  and  rain 
from  the  sea,  instead  of  obeying  the  orders  to  stand  to 
their  arms.  "It  was  our  own  laziness,''  said  LesHe ; 
'T  take  God  to  witness  that  we  might  have  as  easily 
beaten  them  as  we  did  James  Graham  at  Philiphaugh, 
if  the  officers  had  stayed  by  their  troops  and  regi- 
ments." 

The  English  and  the  Scots  faced  one  another  across 
a  brook  with  steep  banks,  only  passable  at  a  narrow 
ford,  and  here  the  fight  was.  The  rout  of  Dunbar  has 
been  described  once  for  all  by  Carlyle,  in  one  of  the 
famous  masterpieces  of  modern  letters,  with  a  force  of 
imagination,  a  faithfulness  in  detail,  a  moral  depth,  a 
poetic  beauty,  that  help  to  atone  for  the  perplexing 
humors  and  whimsical  philosophies  that  mar  that  fine 
biography.  It  is  wise  for  others  not  to  attempt  to  turn 
into  poetry  the  prose  of  politics  and  war.  The  battle 
opened  with  a  cannonade  from  the  English  guns,  fol- 
lowed by  a  charge  of  horse  under  Lambert.  The 
enemy  were  in  a  good  position,  had  the  advantage  of 
guns  and  foot  against  Lambert's  horse,  and  at  first 
had  the  best  of  it  in  the  struggle.  Before  the  English 
foot  could  come  up,  Cromwell  says,  "the  enemy  made 
a  gallant  resistance,  and  there  was  a  very  hot  dispute 
at  swords'  point  between  our  horse  and  theirs."  Then 
the  first  line  of  foot  came  up,  and  "after  they  had  dis- 
charged their  duty  (being  overpowered  with  the 
enemy)  received  some  repulse  which  they  soon  re- 
covered. For  my  own  regiment  did  come  seasonably 
in,  and  at  the  push  of  pike  did  repel  the  stoutest  regi- 


3o8  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

ment  the  enemy  had  there,  which  proved  a  great 
amazement  to  the  residue  of  their  foot.  The  horse  in 
the  meantime  did  with  a  great  deal  of  courage  and 
spirit  beat  back  all  opposition;  charging  through  the 
bodies  of  the  enemy's  horse  and  of  their  foot;  who 
were  after  the  first  repulse  given,  made  by  the  Lord 
of  Hosts  as  stubble  to  their  swords.  The  best  of  the 
enemy's  horse  being  broken  through  and  through  in 
less  than  an  hour's  dispute,  their  whole  army  being  put 
into  confusion,  it  became  a  total  rout,  our  men  having 
the  chase  and  execution  of  them  near  eight  miles." 

Such  is  the  whole  story  of  this  memorable  hour's 
tight  as  told  by  the  victor.  Rushworth,  then  Crom- 
well's secretary,  is  still  more  summary.  "About  twilight 
the  general  advanced  with  the  army,  and  charged  them 
both  in  the  valley  and  on  the  hill.  The  battle  was 
very  fierce  for  the  time;  one  part  of  their  battalion 
stood  very  stiffly  to  it,  but  the  rest  was  presently 
routed.  I  never  beheld  a  more  terrible  charge  of  foot 
than  was  given  by  our  army;  our  foot  alone  making 
the  Scots  foot  give  ground  for  three  quarters  of  a  mile 
together."  Whether  the  business  was  finally  done  by 
Lambert's  second  charge  of  horse  after  his  first  repulse, 
or  whether  Cromwell  turned  the  day  by  a  flank  move- 
ment of  his  own,  the  authorities  do  not  enable  us  to 
settle.  The  best  of  them  says  this :  "The  day  broke, 
and  we  in  disorder,  and  the  major-general  (Lambert) 
a-wanting,  being  ordering  the  guns.  The  general  was 
impatient;  the  Scots  a-preparing  to  make  the  attempt 
upon  us,  sounding  a  trumpet,  but  soon  desisted.  At 
last  the  major-general  came,  and  ordered  Packer, 
major  to  the  general's  regiment,  Cough's  and  our  two 
foot  regiments  to  march  about  Roxburgh  House  to- 
ward the  sea,  and  so  to  fall  upon  the  enemy's  flank, 
which  was  done  with  a  great  deal  of  resolution;  and 


the  original  portrait  at  Chequers  Court,  by  permission  of 
Mrs.  Frankland-Russell-Astley. 


GENERAL  JOHN    LAMBERT. 


IN    SCOTLAND  309 

one  of  the  Scots  brigades  of  foot  would  not  yield, 
though  at  push  of  pike  and  butt-end  of  musket,  until  a 
troop  of  our  horse  charged  from  one  end  to  another  of 
them,  and  so  left  them  at  the  mercy  of  the  foot.  The 
general  himself  comes  in  the  rear  of  our  regiment,  and 
commands  to  incline  to  the  left;  that  was  to  take  more 
ground,  to  be  clear  of  all  bodies.  And  we  did  so,  and 
horse  and  foot  were  engaged  all  over  the  field;  and  the 
Scots  all  in  confusion.  And  the  sun  appearing  upon 
the  sea,  I  heard  Noll  say,  'Now  let  God  arise,  and  his 
enemies  shall  be  scattered' ;  and  he  following  us  as  we 
slowly  marched,  I  heard  him  say,  T  profess  they  run !' 
and  then  was  the  Scots  army  all  in  disorder  and  running, 
both  right  wing  and  left  and  main  battle.  They  had 
routed  one  another  after  we  had  done  their  work  on 
their  right  wing;  and  we  coming  up  to  the  top  of  the 
hill  with  the  straggling  parties  that  had  been  engaged, 
kept  them  from  bodying." 

Cromwell's  gazette  was  peculiar,  perhaps  not  with- 
out a  moral  for  later  days.  "Both  your  chief  com- 
manders and  others  in  their  several  places,  and  soldiers 
also  were  acted  (actuated)  with  as  much  courage  as 
ever  hath  been  seen  in  any  action  since  this  war.  I 
know  they  look  not  to  be  named,  and  therefore  I  for- 
bear particulars."  Nor  is  a  word  said  about  the  pre- 
cise part  taken  by  himself.  An  extraordinary  fact 
about  the  drove  of  Dunbar  is  that  though  the  battle  was 
so  fierce,  at  such  close  quarters,  and  lasted  more  than 
an  hour,  yet  the  English  did  not  lose  thirty  men,  or 
even  as  Oliver  says  in  another  place,  not  twenty. 
They  killed  three  thousand,  and  took  ten  thousand 
prisoners. 


CHAPTER   IV 


FROM    DUNBAR    TO    WORCESTER 

FOR  nearly  a  year  after  the  victory  at  Dunbar  Crom- 
well remained  in  Scotland,  and  for  five  months  of 
the  year,  with  short  intervals  followed  by  relapses,  he 
suffered  from  an  illnesss  from  which  he  thought  he 
should  die.  On  the  day  after  Dunbar  he  wrote  to  his 
wife:  "My  weak  faith  hath  been  upheld.  I  have  been 
in  my  inward  man  marvelously  supported,  though  I 
assure  thee  I  grow  an  old  man  and  feel  infirmities  of 
age  marvelously  stealing  upon  me.  Would  my  cor- 
ruptions did  as  fast  decrease."  He  was  only  fifty 
years  old,  but  for  the  last  eight  years  his  labors,  hard- 
ships, privations,  and  anxieties  had  been  incessant  and 
severe.  The  winter  in  Ireland  had  brought  on  a  long 
and  sharp  attack  of  feverish  ague.  The  climate  of 
Scotland  agreed  with  him  no  better.  The  baffled 
marches  and  counter-marches  that  preceded  Dunbar, 
in  dreadful  weather  and  along  miry  ways,  may  well 
have  depressed  his  vital  energies.  His  friends  in  Lon- 
don took  alarm  (February,  1656),  and  Parliament 
despatched  two  physicians  from  London  to  see  him, 
and  even  made  an  order  allowing  him  to  return  into 
England  for  change  of  air.  Of  this  unsolicited  per- 
mission he  did  not  avail  himself. 

Both  the  political   and  the  military  operations   in 
Scotland  between  Dunbar  and  Worcester  are  as  intricate 
310 


FROM   DUNBAR   TO   WORCESTER     311 

a  tangle  as  any  in  Cromwell's  career.  The  student 
who  unravels  them  in  detail  may  easily  convince  us 
what  different  results  might  have  foUow^ed,  if 
military  tactics  had  been  other  than  they  were,  or  if 
religious  quarrels  had  been  less  vivid  and  less  stub- 
born. The  general  outline  is  fairly  plain.  As  Ranke 
says,  the  struggle  was  not  between  two  ordinary 
armies,  biit  two  politico-religious  sects.  On  both  sides 
they  professed  to  be  zealous  Protestants.  On  both 
sides  they  professed  their  conviction  of  the  immediate 
intervention  of  Providence  in  their  affairs.  On  both 
sides  a  savory  text  made  an  unanswerable  argument, 
and  English  and  Scots  in  the  seventeenth  century  of 
the  Christian  era  found  their  morals  and  their  politics 
in  the  tribal  warfare  of  the  Hebrews  of  the  old  dis- 
pensation. The  English  likened  themselves  to  Israel 
against  Benjamin;  and  then  to  Joshua  against  the 
Canaanites.  The  Scots  repaid  in  the  same  scriptural 
coin.  The  quarrel  was  whether  they  should  have  a 
king  or  not,  and  whether  there  should  be  a  ruling 
church  or  not.  The  rout  of  Leslie  at  Dunbar  had 
thrown  the  second  of  these  issues  into  a  secondary 
place. 

In  vain  did  Cromwell,  as  his  fashion  was,  appeal  to 
the  testimony  of  results.  He  could  not  comprehend 
how  men  worshiping  the  God  of  Israel,  and  thinking 
themselves  the  chosen  people,  could  so  perversely  ig- 
nore the  moral  of  Dunbar,  and  the  yet  more  eminent 
witness  of  the  Lord  against  the  family  of  Charles  for 
blood-guiltiness.  The  churchmen  haughtily  replied 
they  had  not  learned  to  hang  the  equity  of  their  cause 
upon  events.  "Events,"  retorted  Oliver,  with  a  scorn 
more  fervid  than  their  own ;  "what  blindness  on  your 
eyes  to  all  those  marvelous  dispensations  lately  wrought 
in  England.     But  did  you  not  solemnly  appeal  and 


312  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

pray?  Did  we  not  do  so  too?  And  ought  not  you 
and  we  to  think  with  fear  and  treml:)Hng  of  the  hand 
of  the  great  God  in  this  mighty  and  strange  appearance 
of  his,  instead  of  slightly  calling  it  'an  event.'  Were 
not  both  your  and  our  expectations  renewed  fr(im 
time  to  time,  whilst  we  waited  upon  God,  to  see  which 
way  he  would  manifest  himself,  upon  our  appeals? 
And  shall  we  after  all  these  our  prayers,  fastings,  tears, 
expectations,  and  solemn  appeals,  call  these  bare 
'events'?     The  Lord  pity  you." 

After  bitter  controversies  that  propagated  them- 
selves in  Scotland  for  generations  to  come,  after  all 
the  strife  between  Remonstrants,  Resolutioners,  and 
Protesters,  and  after  a  victory  by  Lambert  over  the 
zealots  of  the  west,  Scottish  policy  underwent  a 
marked  reaction.  Argyll,  the  shifty  and  astute  oppor- 
tunist, who  had  attempted  to  combine  fierce  Covenan- 
ters with  moderate  Royalists,  lost  his  game.  The 
fanatical  clergy  had  been  brought  down  from  the  mas- 
tery which  they  had  so  arrogantly  abused.  The  nobles 
and  gentry  regained  their  ascendancy.  The  king 
found  a  large  force  at  last  in  line  upon  his  side,  and  saw 
a  chance  of  throwing  off  the  yoke  of  his  Presbyterian 
tyrants.  All  the  violent  and  confused  issues,  political 
and  religious,  had  by  the  middle  of  165 1  become  sim- 
plified into  the  one  question  of  a  Royalist  restoration 
to  the  throne  of  the  two  kingdoms. 

The  headquarters  of  the  Scots  were  at  Stirling,  and 
here  David  Leslie  repeated  the  tactics  that  had  been  so 
triumphant  at  Edinburgh.  Well  entrenched  within  a 
region  of  marsh  and  moorland,  he  baffled  all  Oliver's 
attempts  to  dislodge  him  or  to  open  the  way  to  Stirling. 
The  English  invaders  were  again  to  be  steadily  wearied 
out.  Cromwell  says,  "We  were  gone  as  far  as  we  could 
in  our  counsel  and  action,  and  we  did  say  to  one  an- 


FROM    DUNBAR    TO    WORCESTER     313 

other,  we  knew  not  what  to  do."  The  enemy  was  at 
his  '"old  lock,"  and  with  abundant  supplies  from  the 
north.  "It  is  our  business  still  to  wait  upon  God,  to 
show  us  our  way  how  to  deal  with  this  subtle  enemy, 
which  I  hope  He  will."  Meanwhile,  like  the  diligent 
man  of  business  that  every  good  general  must  be,  he 
sends  to  the  Council  of  State  for  more  arms,  more 
spades  and  tools,  more  saddles  and  provisions,  and 
more  men,  especially  volunteers  rather  than  pressed 
men.  His  position  was  not  so  critical  as  on  the  eve  of 
Dunbar,  but  it  was  vexatious.  There  w-as  always  the 
risk  of  the  Scots  retiring  in  detached  parties  to  the 
Highlands  and  so  prolonging  the  w^ar.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  he  did  not  succeed  in  dislodging  the  king  from 
Stirling,  he  must  face  another  winter  with  all  the  diffi- 
culties of  climate  and  health  for  his  soldiers,  and  all 
the  expense  of  English  treasure  for  the  government  at 
Whitehall.  For  many  w-eeks  he  had  been  revolving 
plans  for  outflanking  Stirling  by  an  expedition 
through  Fife,  and  cutting  the  king  off  from  his  north- 
ern resources.  In  this  plan  also  there  was  the  risk 
that  a  march  in  force  northward  left  the  road  to  Eng- 
land open,  if  the  Scots  in  their  desperation  and  fear 
and  inevitable  necessity  should  try  what  they  could  do 
in  this  way.  In  July  Cromwell  came  at  length  to  a 
decision.  He  despatched  Lambert  with  four  thousand 
men  across  the  Forth  to  the  shores  of  Fife,  and  after 
Lambert  had  overcome  the  stout  resistance  of  a  force 
of  Scots  of  about  equal  numbers  at  Inverkeithing, 
Cromwell  transported  the  main  body  of  his  army  on 
to  the  same  ground,  and  the  w^hole  force  passing  Stir- 
ling on  the  left  advanced  north  as  far  as  Perth.  Here 
Cromwell  arrived  on  August  ist,  and  the  City  was  sur- 
rendered to  him  on  the  following  day.  This  move 
placed  the  king  and  his  force  in  the  desperate  dilemma 


314  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

that  had  been  foreseen.  Their  suppHes  would  be  cut 
off,  their  men  were  beginning  to  desert,  and  the  Eng- 
lish were  ready  to  close.  Their  only  choice  lay  between 
a  hopeless  engagement  in  the  open  about  Stirling,  and  a 
march  to  the  south.  "We  must,"  said  one  of  them, 
"either  starve,  disband,  or  go  with  a  handful  of  men  into 
England.  This  last  seems  to  be  the  least  ill,  yet  it  ap- 
pears very  desperate."  That  was  the  way  they  chose; 
they  started  forth  (July  31)  for  the  invasion  of  Eng- 
land. Cromwell,  hearing  the  momentous  news,  acted 
with  even  more  than  his  usual  swiftness,  and  having 
taken  Perth  on  August  2d,  was  back  again  at 
Leith  two  days  later,  and  off  from  Leith  in 
pursuit  two  days  after  his  arrival  there.  The  chase 
lasted  a  month.  Charles  and  twenty  thousand  Scots 
took  the  western  road,  as  Hamilton  had  done  in  1648. 
England  w^as,  in  Cromwell's  phrase,  much  more  un- 
steady in  Hamilton's  time  than  now,  and  the  Scots 
tramped  south  from  Carlisle  to  Worcester  without  any 
signs  of  that  eager  rising  against  the  Commonwealth 
on  which  they  had  professed  to  count.  They  found 
themselves  foreigners  among  stolid  and  scowling 
natives.  The  Council  of  State  responded  to  Crom- 
well's appeal  with  extraordinary  vigilance,  fore- 
thought, and  energy.  They  despatched  letters  to  the 
militia  commissioners  over  England,  urging  them  to 
collect  forces  and  to  have  them  in  the  right  places. 
They  dwelt  on  the  king's  mistaken  calculations,  how 
the  counties,  instead  of  assisting  him  everywhere  with 
the  cheerfulness  on  which  he  was  reckoning,  had  united 
against  him ;  and  how,  after  all  his  long  march,  scarcely 
anybody  joined  him,  "except  such  whose  other  crimes 
seek  shelter  there,  by  the  addition  of  that  one  more." 
The  lord-general,  making  his  way  south  in  hard 
marches  bv  Berwick,  York,  Xottino-ham,  was  forced  to 


FROM    DUNBAR   TO    WORCESTER     315 

leave  not  a  few  of  his  veterans  on  the  way,  worn  out 
by  sickness  and  the  hardships  of  the  last  winter's  cam- 
paign in  Scotland.  These  the  Council  directed  should 
be  specially  refreshed  and  tended. 

Cromwell's  march  from  Perth  to  Worcester,  and 
the  combinations  incident  to  it,  have  excited  the  warm 
admiration  of  the  military  critics  of  our  own  time. 
The  precision  of  his  operations  would  be  deemed  re- 
markable even  in  the  days  of  the  telegraph,  and  their 
success  testifies  to  Cromwell's  extraordinary  sureness 
in  all  that  concerned  the  movements  of  horse,  as  well 
as  to  the  extraordinary  military  talent  of  Lambert,  on 
which  he  knew  that  he  could  safely  reckon.  Harrison, 
who  had  instantly  started  after  the  Scottish  invaders 
upon  his  left  flank,  and  Lambert,  whom  Cromwell 
ordered  to  hang  upon  their  rear,  effected  a  junction  on 
August  13th.  Cromwell,  marching  steadily  on  a  line 
to  the  east,  and  receiving  recruits  as  he  advanced  (from 
Fairfax  in  Yorkshire  among  others),  came  up  with 
Lambert's  column  on  August  24th.  Fleetwood  joined 
them  with  the  forces  of  militia  newly  collected  in  the 
south.  Thus  three  separate  corps,  starting  from  three 
different  bases  and  marching  at  long  distances  from 
one  another,  converged  at  the  right  point,  and  four 
days  later  the  whole  army,  some  thirty  thousand  strong, 
lay  around  Worcester.  "Not  Napoleon,  not  Moltke, 
could  have  done  better"  (Honig,  IIL,  p.  136).  The 
energy  of  the  Council  of  State,  the  skill  of  Lambert 
and  Harrison,  and  above  all  the  stanch  aversion  of  the 
population  from  the  invaders,  had  hardly  less  to  do 
with  the  result  than  the  strategy  of  Oliver. 

It  was  indispensable  that  Cromwell's  force  should 
be  able  to  operate  at  once  on  both  banks  of  the  Severn. 
Fleetwood  succeeded  in  crossing  Upton  Bridge  from 
the  left  bank  to  the  right,  seven  miles  below  Worcester, 


3i6  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

thus  securing  access  to  both  banks.  About  midway 
between  Worcester  and  Upton,  the  tributary  Teme 
flows  into  the  Severn,  and  the  decisive  element  in  the 
struggle  consisted  in  laying  two  bridges  of  boats,  one 
across  the  Teme,  and  the  other  across  the  Severn,  both 
of  them  close  to  the  junction  of  the  broader  stream 
with  the  less.  This  was  the  work  of  the  afternoon  of 
September  3d,  the  anniversary  of  Dunbar,  and  it  be- 
came possible  for  the  Cromwellians  to  work  freely 
with  a  concentrated  force  on  either  left  bank  or  right. 
The  battle  w^as  opened  by  Fleetwood  after  he  had 
transported  one  of  his  wings  by  the  bridge  of  boats 
over  the  Teme,  and  the  other  by  Powick  Bridge,  a 
short  distance  up  the  stream  on  the  left.  As  soon  as 
Fleetwood  advanced  to  the  attack,  the  Scots  on  the 
right  bank  of  the  Severn  offered  a  strong  resistance. 
Cromwell  passed  a  mixed  force  of  horse  and  foot  over 
his  Severn  Bridge  to  the  relief  of  Fleetwood.  To- 
gether they  beat  the  enemy  from  hedge  to  hedge,  till 
they  beat  him  into  Worcester.  The  scene  then 
changed  to  the  left  bank.  Charles,  from  the  cathedral 
tower  observing  that  Cromwell's  main  force  was  en- 
gaged in  the  pursuit  of  the  Scots  betw^een  the  Teme  and 
the  city,  drew  all  his  men  together  and  sallied  out  on 
the  eastern  side.  Here  they  pressed  as  hard  as  they 
could  upon  the  reserve  that  Cromwell  had  left  behind 
him  before  joining  Fleetwood.  He  now  in  all  haste 
recrossed  the  Severn,  and  a  furious  engagement  fol- 
lowed, lasting  for  three  hours  at  close  quarters  and 
often  at  push  of  pike  and  from  defense  to  defense.  The 
end  was  the  "total  defeat  and  ruin  of  the  enemy's 
army;  and  a  possession  of  the  town,  our  men  entering 
at  the  enemy's  heels  and  fighting  with  them  in  the 
streets  with  very  great  courage."  The  Scots  fought 
with   desperate   tenacity.     The   carnage   was   what   it 


From  a  miniature  on  ivory  in  the  collection  of  Sir  Richard  Tangye. 
MAJOR-GENERAL  CHARLES   FLEETWOOD. 


FROM    DUNBAR    TO    WORCESTER     317 

always  is  in  street  warfare.  Some  three  thousand 
men  lay  dead ;  twice  or  even  three  times  as  many  were 
taken  prisoners,  including  most  of  the  men  of  high 
station;  Charles  was  a  fugitive.  Not  many  of  the 
Scots  ever  saw  their  homes  again. 

Such  was  the  battle  of  Worcester,  as  stiff  a  contest, 
says  the  victor,  as  ever  I  have  seen.  It  was  Oliver's 
last  battle,  the  "Crowning  Mercy."  In  what  sense 
did  this  great  military  event  deserve  so  high  a  title? 
It  has  l)een  said,  that  as  military  commander  Crom- 
well's special  work  was  not  the  overthrow  of  Charles 
I,  but  the  rearrangement  of  the  relations  of  the  three 
kingdoms.  Such  a  distinction  is  arbitrary  or  para- 
doxical. Neither  at  Naseby  and  Preston,  nor  at 
Dunbar  and  Worcester,  was  any  indelible  stamp  im- 
pressed upon  the  institutions  of  the  realm ;  no  real  in- 
corporation of  Ireland  and  Scotland  took  place  or  was 
then  possible.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  w^hat  Cromwell's 
military  genius  and  persistency  secured  by  the  subju- 
gation alike  of  king  and  kingdoms,  was  that  the  waves 
of  anarchy  should  not  roll  over  the  work,  and  that 
enough  of  the  conditions  of  unity  and  order  should 
be  preserved  to  ensure  national  safety  and  progress 
when  affairs  returned  to  their  normal  course.  In  Ire- 
land this  provisional  task  w^as  so  ill  comprehended  as 
to  darken  all  the  future.  In  Scotland  its  immediate 
and  positive  results  were  transient,  but  there  at  least 
no  barriers  were  raised  against  the  happier  relations 
that  were  to  come  after. 


CHAPTER    V 


CIVIL    PROBLEMS    AND    THE    SOLDIER 

WHEN  God,  said  Milton,  has  giveii  victory  to  the 
cause,  "then  comes  the  task  to  those  worthies 
which  are  the  soul  of  that  enterprise  to  be  sweated  and 
labored  out  amidst  the  throng  and  noises  of  vulgar  and 
irrational  men."  Often  in  later  days  Cromwell  used 
to  declare  that  after  the  triumph  of  the  cause  at  Wor- 
cester, he  would  fain  have  withdrawn  from  promi- 
nence and  power.  These  signs  of  fatigue  in  strong  men 
are  often  sincere  and  always  vain.  Outer  circumstance 
prevents  withdrawal,  and  the  inspiring  demon  of 
the  mind  within  prevents  it.  This  was  the  climax  of 
his  glory.  Nine  years  had  gone  since  conscience, 
duty,  his  country,  the  cause  of  civil  freedom,  the  cause 
of  sacred  truth  and  of  the  divine  purpose,  had  all,  as 
he  believed,  summoned  him  to  arms.  With  miracu- 
lous constancy  victory  had  crowned  his  standards. 
Unlike  Conde,  or  Turenne,  or  almost  any  general  that 
has  ever  lived,  he  had  in  all  these  years  of  incessant 
warfare  never  suffered  a  defeat.  The  rustic  captain  of 
horse  was  lord-general  of  the  army  that  he  had  brought 
to  be  the  best  disciplined  force  in  Europe.  Tt  was  now 
to  be  seen  wdiether  the  same  genius  and  the  same  for- 
tune would  mark  his  handling  of  civil  affairs  and  the 
ship  of  state  plunging  among  the  breakers.  It  was 
certain  that  he  would  be  as  active  and  indefatigable  in 
318 


CIVIL   PROBLEMS  319 

peace  as  he  liad  proved  himself  in  war;  that  energy 
would  never  fail,  even  if  depth  of  counsel  often  failed; 
that  strenuous  watchfulness  would  never  relax,  even 
though  calculations  went  again  and  again  amiss;  that 
it  would  still  be  true  of  him  to  the  end,  that  he  was  a 
strong  man,  and  in  the  deep  perils  of  war,  in  the  high 
places  of  the  field,  hope  shone  in  him  like  a  pillar  of 
fire  when  it  had  gone  out  in  all  others.  A  spirit  of 
confident  hope,  and  the  halo  of  past  success — these  are 
two  of  the  manifold  secrets  of  a  great  man's  power, 
and  a  third  is  a  certain  moral  unity  that  impresses  him 
on  others  as  a  living  whole.  Cromwell  possessed  all 
three.  Whether  he  had  the  other  gifts  of  a  wise  ruler 
in  a  desperate  pass,  only  time  could  show. 

The  victorious  general  had  a  triumphant  return. 
The  Parliament  sent  five  of  its  most  distinguished 
members  to  greet  him  on  his  march,  voted  him  a  grant 
of  £4000  a  year  in  addition  to  £2500  voted  the  year 
before,  and  they  gave  him  Hampton  Court  as  a  coun- 
try residence.  He  entered  the  metropolis,  accom- 
panied not  only  by  the  principal  officers  of  the  army, 
but  by  the  Speaker,  the  Council  of  State,  the  Lord 
Mayor,  the  aldermen  and  sheriffs,  and  many  thousand 
other  persons  of  quality,  while  an  immense  multitude 
received  the  conqueror  of  Ireland  and  Scotland  with 
volleys  of  musketry  and  loud  rejoicing.  In  the  midst 
of  acclamations  that  Cromwell  took  for  no  more  than 
they  were  worth,  it  was  observed  that  he  bore  himself 
with  great  affability  and  seeming  humility.  With  a 
touch  of  the  irony  that  was  rare  in  him,  but  can  never 
be  wholly  absent  in  any  that  meddle  with  affairs  of 
politics  and  party,  he  remarked  that  there  would  have 
been  a  still  mightier  crowd  to  see  him  hanged.  \\^hen- 
ever  \\'orcester  was  talked  of.  he  never  spoke  of  him- 
self, but  talked  of  the  gallantry  of  his  comrades,  and 


320  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

gave  the  glory  to  God.  Yet  there  were  those  who 
said  "this  man  will  make  himself  our  king,"  and  in 
days  to  come  his  present  modesty  was  set  down  to 
craft.  For  it  is  one  of  the  elements  in  the  poverty  of 
human  nature  that  as  soon  as  people  see  a  leader  know- 
ing how  to  calculate,  they  slavishly  assume  that  the 
aim  of  his  calculations  can  be  nothing  else  than  his  own 
interest.  Cromwell's  moderation  was  in  truth  the 
natural  bearing  of  a  man  massive  in  simplicity,  purged 
of  self,  and  who  knew  far  too  well  how  many  circum- 
stances work  together  for  the  unfolding  of  great 
events,  to  dream  of  gathering  all  the  credit  to  a  single 
agent. 

Bacon  in  a  single  pithy  sentence  had,  in  1606,  fore- 
shadowed the  whole  policy  of  the  Commonwealth  of 
1650.  This  Kingdom  of  England,  he  told  the  House 
of  Commons,  "having  Scotland  united,  Ireland  re- 
duced, the  sea  provinces  of  the  Low  Countries  con- 
tracted, and  shipping  maintained,  is  one  of  the  greatest 
monarchies  in  forces  truly  esteemed  that  hath  been  in 
the  world."  The  Commonwealth  on  Cromwell's  re- 
turn from  the  "Crowning  Mercy"  had  lasted  for  two 
years  and  a  half  (February  i,  1649 — September, 
1651).  During  this  period  its  existence  had  been 
saved  mainly  by  Cromwell's  victorious  suppression  of 
its  foes  in  Ireland  and  in  Scotland,  and  partly  by  cir- 
cumstances in  France  and  Spain  that  hindered  either  of 
the  two  great  monarchies  of  western  Europe  from 
armed  intervention  on  behalf  of  monarchy  in  England. 
Its  Protestantism  had  helped  to  shut  out  the  fallen 
sovereignty  from  the  active  sympathy  of  the  sacred 
circle  of  Catholic  kings.  Cromwell's  military  success 
in  the  outlying  kingdoms  was  matched  by  correspond- 
ing progress  achieved  through  the  energy  and  policy  of 
the  civil  government  at  Westminster.     At  Christmas, 


CIVIL   PROBLEMS  321 

1650,  or  less  than  two  years  after  the  execution  of 
Charles,  an  ambassador  from  the  King  of  Spain  was 
received  in  audience  by  the  ParHament,  and  presented 
his  credentials  to  the  Speaker.  France,  torn  by  in- 
testine discord  and  with  a  more  tortuous  game  to  play, 
was  slower,  but  in  the  winter  of  1652  the  Common- 
wealth was  duly  recognized  by  the  government  of 
Louis  XIV,  the  nephew  of  the  king  whom  the  leaders 
of  the  Commonw^ealth  had  slain. 

Less  than  justice  has  usually  been  done  to  the  bold 
and  skilful  exertions  by  which  the  Council  of  State 
had  made  the  friendship  of  England  an  object  of  keen 
desire  both  to  France  and  to  Spain.  The  creation  of 
the  navy,  by  which  Blake  and  other  of  the  amphibious 
sea-generals  won  some  of  the  proudest  victories  in  all 
the  annals  of  English  seamanship,  was  not  less  strik- 
ing and  hardly  less  momentous  than  the  creation  of  the 
army  of  the  New  Model.  For  the  first  time,  says 
Ranke,  since  the  days  of  the  Plantagenets  an  English 
fleet  was  seen  in  the  Mediterranean,  and  Blake,  who 
had  never  been  on  the  quarter-deck  of  a  man-of-war 
until  he  was  fifty,  was  already  only  second  in  renown  to 
Oliver  himself.  The  task  of  maritime  organization 
was  carried  through  by  the  vigor,  insight,  and  adminis- 
trative talents  of  Vane  and  the  other  men  of  the  Parlia- 
ment, who  are  now  so  often  far  too  summarily  de- 
spatched as  mere  egotists  and  pedants.  By  the  time  that 
Cromwell  had  effected  the  subjugation  of  Ireland  which 
Ireton,  Ludlow,  and  Fleetwood  completed,  and  the  sub- 
jugation of  Scotland  which  Monk  and  Deane  com- 
pleted, he  found  that  the  Council  of  State  had  been  as 
active  in  suppressing  the  piratical  civil  war  waged  by 
Rupert  at  sea,  as  he  himself  had  been  with  his  iron  vet- 
erans on  land.  What  was  more,  they  had  opened  a  mo- 
mentous chapter  of  maritime  and  commercial  policy. 


322  OLIVER   CROMWELL 

111  will  had  sprung  up  early  between  the  Dutch  and 
English  republics,  partly  from  the  dynastic  relations 
between  the  house  of  Stuart  and  the  house  of  Orange, 
partly  from  repugnance  in  Holland  to  the  shedding  of 
the  blood  of  King  Charles,  and  most  of  all  from  the 
keen  instincts  of  commercial  rivalry.  It  has  been  justly 
remarked  as  extraordinary  that  the  tw'o  republics, 
threatened  both  of  them  by  Stuart  interests,  by  Catho- 
lic interests,  and  by  France,  should  now  for  the  first 
time  make  war  on  each  other.  In  the  days  of  their 
struggle  with  Spain  the  Dutch  did  their  best  to  per- 
suade Queen  Elizabeth  to  accept  their  allegiance  and 
to  incorporate  the  United  Provinces  in  the  English 
realm.  Now  it  was  statesmen  of  the  English  Com- 
monwealth w4io  dreamed  of  adding  the  Dutch  Republic 
to  the  union  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland.  Of 
this  dream  in  shape  so  definite  nothing  could  come,  and 
even  minor  projects  of  friendship  were  not  discussed 
without  a  degree  of  friction  that  speedily  passed  into 
downright  animosity.  To  cripple  the  naval  power  of 
Holland  would  at  once  satisfy  the  naval  pride  of  the 
new  Commonwealth,  remove  a  source  of  military  dan- 
ger, and  exalt  the  maritime  strength  and  the  commer- 
cial greatness  of  England.  The  Navigation  Act  of 
1 65 1  was  passed,  the  one  durable  moment  of  republican 
legislation.  By  this  famous  measure  goods  were  only 
to  be  admitted  into  England  either  in  English  ships, 
or  else  in  ships  of  the  country  to  wdiich  the  goods 
belonged.  Whatever  else  came  of  it — and  its  effects 
to  the  direct  and  indirect  were  deep  and  far-reaching 
for  many  years  to  come — the  Navigation  Act  made 
a  breach  in  the  Dutch  monopoly  of  the  world's 
carrying  trade.  An  unfriendly  Holland  seemed  as 
direct  a  peril  as  the  enmity  of  France  or  Spain,  and 
before  long  it  was  perceived  how  easily  a  combination 


CIVIL   PROBLEMS  323 

between  Holland  and  Denmark,  by  closing  the  gates  of 
the  Baltic,  might  exclude  England  from  free  access  to 
the  tar,  cordage,  and  the  other  prime  requisites  for  the 
building  and  rigging  of  her  ships.  The  blow  at  the 
Dutch  trade  monopoly  was  a  fresh  irritant  to  Dutch 
pride,  already  embittered  by  the  English  claim  to 
supremacy  and  the  outward  symbols  of  supremacy  in 
the  narrow  seas,  as  well  as  to  a  right  of  seizure  of  the 
goods  of  enemies  in  neutral  ships.  War  followed 
(1652)  and  was  prosecuted  by  the  Commonwealth 
with  intrepidity,  decision,  and  vigor  not  unworthy  of 
the  ancient  Senate  of  Rome  at  its  highest.  Cromwell 
had  little  share,  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  discern,  in  this 
memorable  attempt  to  found  the  maritime  ascendancy 
of  England ;  that  renown  belongs  to  Vane,  the  organ- 
izer, and  to  Blake,  Deane,  and  Monk,  the  sea-generals. 

To  Cromwell  for  the  time  a  war  between  two  Prot- 
estant republics  seemed  a  fratricidal  war.  It  was  in 
conflict  with  that  ideal  of  religious  union  and  Eng- 
land's place  in  Europe,  which  began  to  ripen  in  his 
mind  as  soon  as  the  stress  of  war  left  his  imagination 
free  to  survey  the  larger  world.  Apart  from  this,  he 
grudged  its  consumption  of  treasure,  and  the  vast  bur- 
den that  it  laid  upon  the  people.  He  set  the  charge  at 
£120,000  a  month,  or  as  much  as  the  whole  of  the  taxes 
came  to,  and  there  was  besides  the  injury  done  by  war 
to  trade.  The  sale  of  church  lands,  king's  lands,  and 
delinquent's  lands  did  not  suffice  to  fill  the  gulf.  Em- 
barrassed finance  as  usual  deepened  popular  discontent, 
heightened  the  unpopularity  of  the  government,  and 
put  off  the  day  of  social  and  political  consolidation. 
Events  or  visions  were  by-and-by  to  alter  Cromwell's 
mind,  not  for  the  better. 

In  the  settlement  of  the  nation  no  progress  was 
made.     Dangerous  reefs  still  showed  at  every  hand  on 


324  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

the  face  of  the  angry  sea.  The  ParHament  in  1646 
had  ordered  the  estabhshment  of  the  Presbyterian  sys- 
tem, but  the  country  was  indifferent  or  hostile ;  classes, 
elderships,  synods  were  in  decay;  even  the  standard 
confession  of  faith  was  still  in  essential  articles  uncon- 
firmed by  law ;  the  fierce  struggle  over  toleration  was 
still  indecisive  and  unsettled;  ecclesiastical  confusion 
was  complete.  The  Westminster  divines,  after  long 
buf¥etings  from  the  Erastian  Parliament,  and  the  tri- 
umphs of  the  hated  Independents,  had  ceased  to  sit 
soon  after  the  king's  death.  Presbyterian  had  become 
frankly  a  name  for  a  party  purely  political.  The  state 
was  as  little  settled  as  the  church.  For  the  formal 
machinery  of  government  Cromwell  cared  little.  What 
he  sought,  what  had  been  deep  in  his  mind  amid  all 
the  toils  of  war,  was  the  opening  of  a  new  way  for 
righteousness  and  justice.  Parliament,  the  State,  the 
strength  and  ordering  of  a  nation,  to  him  were  only 
means  for  making  truth  shine  in  the  souls  of  men,  and 
right  and  duty  prevail  in  their  life  and  act.  "Disown 
yourselves,"  he  exhorted  the  Parliament  after  the  vic- 
tory at  Dunbar,  "but  own  your  authority ;  and  improve 
it  to  curb  the  proud  and  insolent,  such  as  would  dis- 
turb the  tranquillity  of  England,  though  under  what 
specious  pretenses  soever.  Relieve  the  oppressed,  hear 
the  groans  of  poor  prisoners  in  England.  Be  pleased 
to  reform  the  abuses  of  all  professions ;  and  if  there 
be  any  one  that  makes  many  poor  to  make  a  few  rich, 
that  suits  not  a  Commonwealth." 

In  the  course  of  an  interview  that  Cromwell  sought 
with  him,  Ludlow  hinted  pretty  plainly  the  suspicions 
that  influenced  this  austere  party.  They  had  not  liked 
the  endeavor  to  come  to  terms  with  the  king,  and  they 
were  shocked  by  the  execution  of  the  mutineer  at  Ware. 
Cromwell  owned  dissatisfaction  at  the  attempted  treaty 


by  S.  Cooper  at  Windsor  Castle,  by  special  permission 
of  Her  INIajesty  the  Queen. 


From  a 

GENERAL   GEORGE    MOXK,  FIRST    DUKE    OF    ALBEMARLE. 


CIVIL   PROBLEMS  325 

with  the  king  to  be  reasonable,  and  excused  the  exe- 
cution done  upon  the  soldier  as  absolutely  necessary 
to  prevent  things  from  falling  into  confusion.  He 
then  said  that  the  Lord  was  accomplishing  wdiat  was 
prophesied  in  the  i  loth  Psalm,  and  launched  out  for  at 
least  an  hour,  says  Ludlow,  w^ith  an  audible  moan,  in 
the  exposition  of  that  Psalm.  Finally  he  follow'ed  up 
his  declaration  of  fidelity  to  a  free  and  equal  Common- 
wealth by  describing  how^  the  substance  of  what  he 
sought  was  a  thorough  reformation  of  the  clergy  and 
the  law.  And  he  traveled  so  far  on  the  road  with  the 
Leveler  and  the  Digger  as  to  declare  that  "the  law,  as 
it  is  now  constituted,  serves  only  to  maintain  the  law- 
yer, and  to  encourage  the  rich  to  oppress  the  poor." 
This  was  in  truth  the  measure  of  Cromw^ell's  ideals  of 
social  reform.  Although,  however,  law-reform  and 
church-reform  w'ere  the  immediate  ends  of  government 
in  his  eyes,  the  questions  of  Parliamentary  or  other 
machinery  could  not  be  evaded.  Was  the  sitting  frag- 
ment of  a  House  of  Commons  fit  to  execute  these  re- 
forms, or  fit  to  frame  a  scheme  for  a  future  constitu- 
tion? Was  it  to  continue  in  permanence  whole  or 
partial?  Cromwell's  first  step  on  his  return  was  to 
persuade  a  majority  to  fix  a  date  at  w^hich  the  Parlia- 
ment should  come  to  an  end.  and  when  that  was 
done  we  hear  little  more  of  him  for  many  months. 
It  was  easy  to  see  wdiat  would  follow.  The  date  fixed 
for  the  expiry  of  the  Parliament  was  three  years  off. 
The  time  was  too  long  for  effective  concentration,  and 
too  short  for  the  institution  of  a  great  scheme  of  com- 
prehensive reform.  A  provisional  government  work- 
ing within  the  limits  of  a  fixed  period,  inevitably  works 
at  a  heavy  disadvantage.  Everything  is  expected 
from  it,  yet  its  authority  is  impaired.  Anxiety  to 
secure  the  future  blunts  attention  to  the  urs^encies  of 


326  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

the  present.  Men  with  a  turn  for  corruption  seek  to 
make  hay  while  the  sun  shines.  Parties  are  shifting 
and  unstable.  The  host  of  men  who  are  restless  with- 
out knowing  what  it  is  that  they  want,  are  never  so 
dangerous.  A  governing  body  in  such  a  situation  was 
certain  to  be  unpopular.  "I  told  them,"  said  Crom- 
well afterward,  "for  I  knew  it  better  than  any  one  man 
in  the  Parliament  could  know  it ;  because  of  my  manner 
of  life  which  had  led  me  everywhere  up  and  down  the 
nation,  thereby  giving  me  to  see  and  know  the  temper 
and  spirits  of  all  men,  and  of  the  best  of  men — that 
the  nation  loathed  their  sitting." 

This  was  probably  true  enough;  unfortunately  the 
systems  that  were  now  one  after  another  to  take  the 
place  of  the  Parliament  were  loathed  just  as  bitterly. 
"It  is  not  the  manner  of  settling  these  constitutional 
things,"  he  said,  "or  the  manner  of  one  set  of  men 
or  another  doing  it ;  there  remains  always  the  grand 
question  after  that;  the  grand  question  lies  in  the  ac- 
ceptance of  it  by  those  who  are  concerned  to  yield 
obedience  to  it  and  accept  it."  This  essential  truth  of 
all  sound  government  he  had  in  the  old  days  pro- 
claimed against  the  constitution-mongers  of  the  camp, 
and  this  was  the  truth  that  brought  to  naught  all  the 
constructive  schemes  of  the  six  years  before  him.  For 
it  became  more  and  more  apparent  that  the  bulk  of  the 
nation  was  quite  as  little  disposed  to  accept  the  rule  of 
the  army  as  the  rule  of  the  mutilated  Parliament. 

In  December  (1651)  Cromwell  held  one  of  the  con- 
ferences, in  which  he  had  more  faith  than  the  event 
ever  justified,  between  prominent  men  in  Parliament 
and  leading  officers  in  the  army.  He  propounded  the 
two  questions,  whether  a  republic  or  a  mixed  monarchy 
would  be  best;  and  if  a  monarchy,  then  who  should  be 
the  king.     The  lawyers,   St.  John,  Lenthall,   White- 


CIVIL   PROBLEMS  327 

locke,  were  of  opinion  that  the  laws  of  England  were 
interwo\-en  with  monarchy.  They  were  for  naming  a 
period  within  which  one  of  Charles's  sons  might  come 
into  the  Parliament.  Desborough  and  Whalley  could 
not  see  why  this,  as  well  as  other  nations,  should  not 
be  governed  in  the  way  of  a  republic.  That  was  the 
sentiment  of  the  army.  Cromwell  thought  that  it 
would  be  difficult,  and  inclined  to  the  belief  that,  if  it 
could  be  done  with  safety  and  preservation  of  rights 
both  as  Englishmen  and  Christians,  "a  settlement  with 
somewhat  of  monarchical  power  in  it  would  be  very 
effectual." 

A  little  later  his  reflections  brought  him  to  use  words 
of  deeper  and  more  direct  import.  We  need  invoke 
neither  craft  nor  ambition  to  explain  the  rise  of  the 
thought  in  Cromwell's  mind  that  he  was  perhaps  him- 
self called  to  take  the  place  and  burden  of  chief  gover- 
nor. The  providences  of  ten  years  had  seemed  to 
mark  him  as  the  instrument  chosen  of  heaven  for  the 
doing  of  a  great  work.  He  brooded,  as  he  told  men, 
over  the  times  and  opportunities  appointed  to  him  by 
God  to  serve  him  in ;  and  he  felt  that  the  blessings  of 
God  therein  bore  testimony  to  him.  After  Worcester, 
he  hoped  that  he  would  be  allowed  to  reap  the  fruits  of 
his  hard  labors  and  hazards,  the  enjoyment,  to  wit,  of 
peace  and  liberty,  and  the  privileges  of  a  Christian  and 
a  man.  Slowly  he  learned,  and  was  earnestly  assured 
by  others,  that  this  could  not  be.  The  continuing  un- 
settlement  was  a  call  to  him  that,  like  Joshua  of  old,  he 
had  still  a  portion  of  the  Lord's  work  to  do  and  must 
be  foremost  in  its  doing. 

Walking  one  November  day  (1652)  in  St.  James's 
Park,  he  sought  a  con\ersation  with  Whitelocke.  who, 
better  than  any  of  these  about  him.  represented  the  solid 
prose  of  the  national  mind.     Cromwell  opened  to  hmi 


328  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

the  dangers  with  which  their  jars  and  animosities  beset 
the  cause.  Whitelocke  boldly  told  him  that  the  peril 
sprang  from  the  imperious  temper  of  the  army. 
Cromwell  retorted  that  on  the  contrary  it  sprang  rather 
from  the  members  of  Parliament,  who  irritated  the 
army  by  their  self-seeking  and  greediness,  their  spirit 
of  faction,  their  delay  in  the  public  business,  their  de- 
sign for  prolonging  their  own  power,  their  meddling  in 
private  matters  between  party  and  party  that  ought  to 
have  been  left  to  the  law-courts.  The  lives  of  some  of 
them  were  scandalous,  he  said.  They  were  irrespon- 
sible and  uncontrolled;  what  was  wanted  was  some 
authority  high  enough  to  check  all  these  exorbitances. 
Without  that  nothing  in  human  reason  could  prevent 
the  ruin  of  the  Commonwealth.  To  this  invective, 
not  devoid  of  substance  but  deeply  colored  by  the  sol- 
dier's impatience  of  a  salutary  slowness  in  human 
affairs,  Whitelocke  replied  by  pressing  the  constitu- 
tional difficulty  of  curbing  the  Parliamentary  power 
from  which  they  themselves  derived  their  own  author- 
ity. Cromwell  broke  in  upon  him  with  the  startling 
exclamation — "What  if  a  man  should  take  upon  him  to 
be  king?"  The  obstacles  in  the  path  were  plain  enough, 
and  the  lawyer  set  them  before  Cromwell  without 
flinching.  For  a  short  time  longer  the  lord-general 
said  and  did  no  more,  but  he  and  the  army  watched 
the  Parliament  with  growing  suspicion  and  ill  will. 
A  military  revolution  became  every  day  more 
imminent. 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE    BREAKING    OF    THE    LONG    PARLIAMENT 

THE  military  revolution  of  1653  is  the  next  tall 
landmark  after  the  execution  of  the  king.  It  is 
almost  a  commonplace,  that  "we  do  not  know  what 
party  means,  if  we  suppose  that  its  leader  is  its  mas- 
ter"; and  the  real  extent  of  Cromwell's  power  over  the 
army  is  hard  to  measure.  In  the  spring  of  1647,  ^vhen 
the  first  violent  breach  between  army  and  Parlia- 
ment took  place,  the  extremists  swept  him  off  his  feet. 
Then  he  acquiesced  in  Pride's  Purge,  but  he  did  not 
originate  it.  In  the  action  that  preceded  the  trial  and 
despatching  of  the  king,  it  seems  to  have  been  Harri- 
son who  took  the  leading  part.  In  1653  Cromwell 
said :  "Major-General  Harrison  is  an  honest  man,  and 
aims  at  good  things ;  yet  from  the  impatience  of  his 
spirit,  he  will  not  wait  the  Lord's  leisure,  but  hurries 
one  into  that  which  he  and  all  honest  men  will  have 
cause  to  repent."  If  we  remember  how  hard  it  is  to 
fathom  decisive  passages  in  the  historyof  our  own  time, 
we  see  how  much  of  that  which  we  would  most  gladly 
know  in  the  distant  past  must  ever  remain  a  surmise. 
But  the  best  opinion  in  respect  of  the  revolution  of 
April,  1653,  seems  to  be  that  the  Royalists  were  not 
wrong  who  wrote  that  Cromwell's  authority  in  the 
army  depended  much  on  Harrison  and  Lambert  and 
their  fanatical  factions;  that  he  was  forced  to  go  with 

329 


330  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

them  in  order  to  save  himself;  and  that  he  was  the 
member  of  the  triumvirate  who  was  most  anxious  to 
wait  the  Lord's  leisure  yet  a  while  longer. 

The  immediate  plea  for  the  act  of  violence  that  now 
followed  is  as  obscure  as  any  other  of  Cromwell's  pro- 
ceedings. In  the  closing  months  of  1652  he  once  more 
procured  occasions  of  conference  between  himself  and 
his  officers  on  the  one  hand,  and  members  of  Parlia- 
ment on  the  other.  He  besought  the  Parliament  men 
by  their  own  means  to  bring  forth  of  their  own  accord 
the  good  things  that  had  been  promised  and  were  so 
long  expected — "so  tender  w^ere  we  to  preserve  them 
in  the  reputation  of  the  people."  The  list  of  ''good 
things"  demanded  by  the  army  in  the  autumn  of  1652 
hardly  supports  the  modern  exaltation  of  the  army  as 
the  seat  of  political  sagacity.  The  payment  of  arrears, 
the  suppression  of  vagabonds,  the  provision  of  work 
for  the  poor,  were  objects  easy  to  ask,  but  impossible 
to  achieve.  The  request  for  a  new  election  was  the 
least  sensible  of  all. 

When  it  was  known  that  the  army  was  again  wait- 
ing on  God  and  confessing  its  sinfulness,  things  were 
felt  to  look  grave.  Seeing  the  agitation,  the  Parlia- 
ment applied  themselves  in  earnest  to  frame  a  scheme 
for  a  new  representative  body.  The  army  believed 
that  the  scheme  was  a  sham,  and  that  the  semblance  of 
giving  the  people  a  real  right  of  choice  was  only  to 
fill  up  vacant  seats  by  such  persons  as  the  House  now 
in  possession  should  approve.  This  was  nothing  less 
than  to  perpetuate  themselves  indefinitely.  Cromwell 
and  the  officers  had  a  scheme  of  their  ow^n;  that  the 
Parliament  should  name  a  certain  number  of  men  of 
the  right  sort,  and  these  nominees  should  build  a  con- 
stitution. The  Parliament  in  other  words  w'as  to  ab- 
dicate after  calling  a  constituent  convention.     On  April 


BREAKING  THE   PARLL\MEXT        331 

19th  a  meeting-  took  place  in  Oliver's  apartment  at 
Whitehall  with  a  score  of  the  more  important  members 
of  Parliament.  There  the  plan  of  the  officers  and  the 
rival  plan  of  Vane  and  his  friends  were  brought  face  to 
face.  What  the  exact  scheme  of  the  Parliament  was, 
we  cannot  accurately  tell,  and  we  are  never  likely  to 
know.  Cromwell's  own  descriptions  of  it  are  vague 
and  unintelligible.  The  bill  itself  he  carried  away 
with  him  under  his  cloak  when  the  evil  day  came,  and 
no  copy  of  it  survived.  It  appears,  however,  that  in 
X^ane's  belief  the  best  device  for  a  provisional  govern- 
ment— and  no  other  than  a  provisional  government 
was  then  possible — was  that  the  Remnant  should  con- 
tinue to  sit,  the  men  who  fought  the  deadly  battles  at 
Westminster  in  1647  ^"cl  1648,  the  men  who  had 
founded  the  Commonwealth  in  1649,  ^he  men  who  had 
carried  on  its  work  with  extraordinary  energy  and  suc- 
cess for  four  years  and  more.  These  were  to  continue 
t(j  sit  as  a  nucleus  for  a  full  representative :  joining  to 
themselves  such  new  men  from  the  constituencies  as 
they  thought  not  likely  to  betray  the  Cause.  On  the 
whole  we  may  believe  that  this  was  perhaps  the  least 
unpromising  way  out  of  difficulties  where  nothing  was 
\-ery  promising.  It  w^as  to  avoid  the  most  fatal  of  all 
the  errors  of  the  French  Constituent,  which  excluded 
all  its  members  from  office  and  from  seats  in  the  Legis- 
lative Assembly  to  whose  inexperienced  hands  it  was 
entrusting  the  government  of  France.  To  blame  its 
authors  for  fettering  the  popular  choice  was  absurd  in 
Cromwell,  w^hose  own  proposal  instead  of  a  legislature 
to  be  partially  and  periodically  renewed  (if  that  was 
really  what  Vane  meant),  was  now  for  a  nominated 
council  without  any  element  of  popular  choice  at  all. 
The  army,  we  should  not  forget,  were  even  less  pre- 
pared than  the  Parliament  for  anything  like  a  free 


I 


332  OLIVER  CROM\\ELL 

and  open  general  election.  Both  alike  intended  to  re- 
serve Parliamentary  representation  exclusively  to  such 
as  were  godly  men  and  faithful  to  the  interests  of  the 
Commonwealth.  An  open  general  election  would  have 
been  as  hazardous  and  probably  as  disastrous  now 
as  at  any  moment  since  the  defeat  of  King  Charles  in 
the  field;  and  a  real  appeal  to  the  country  would  only 
have  meant  ruin  to  the  Good  Cause.  Neither  Crom- 
well, nor  Lambert,  nor  Harrison,  nor  any  of  them, 
dreamed  that  a  Parliament  to  be  chosen  without  restric- 
tions would  be  a  safe  experiment.  The  only  questions 
were  what  the  restrictions  were  to  be ;  who  was  to  im- 
pose them  :  who  was  to  guard  and  supervise  them.  The 
Parliamentary  Remnant  regarded  themselves  as  the 
fittest  custodians,  and  it  is  hard  to  say  that  they  were 
wrong.  In  judging  these  events  of  1653  we  must 
look  forward  to  events  three  years  later.  Cromwell 
had  a  Parliament  of  his  own  in  1654;  it  consisted  of 
four  hundred  and  sixty  members ;  almost  his  first  step 
was  to  prevent  more  than  a  hundred  of  them  from 
taking  their  seats.  He  may  have  been  right ;  but  why 
was  the  Parliament  wrong  for  acting  on  the  same 
principle?  He  had  another  Parliament  in  1656,  and 
again  he  began  by  shutting  out  nearly  a  hundred  of  its 
elected  members.  AMien  the  army  cried  for  a  dissolu- 
tion, they  had  no  ideas  as  to  the  Parliament  that  was 
to  follow.  At  least  this  much  is  certain,  that  what- 
ever failure  might  have  overtaken  the  plan  of  Vane 
and  the  Parliament,  it  could  not  have  been  more 
complete  than  the  failure  that  overtook  the  plan  of 
Cromwell. 

Apart  from  the  question  of  the  constitution  of  Par- 
liament, and  perhaps  regarding  that  as  secondary, 
Cromwell  quarreled  with  what,  rightly  or  wrongly,  he 
describes  as  the  ultimate  ideal  of  V^ane  and  his  friends. 


L 


BREAKING   THE   PARLIAMENT        333 

We  should  have  had  fine  work,  he  said  four  years  later 
— a  Council  of  State  and  a  Parliament  of  four  hundred 
men  executing  arbitrary  government,  and  continuing 
the  existing  usurpation  of  the  duties  of  the  law-courts 
by  legislature  and  executive.  Undoubtedly  "a  horrid 
degree  of  arbitrariness"  was  practised  by  the  Rump, 
but  some  allowance  was  to  be  made  for  a  government 
in  revolution ;  and  if  that  plea  be  not  good  for  the  Par- 
liament, one  knows  not  why  it  should  be  good  for  the 
no  less  "horrid  arbitrariness"  of  the  Protector.  As  for 
the  general  character  of  the  constitution  here  said  to  be 
contemplated  by  the  Remnant,  it  has  been  compared  to 
the  French  Convention  of  1793;  but  a  less  odious  and 
a  truer  parallel  would  be  with  the  Swiss  Confederacy 
to-day.  However  this  may  be,  if  dictatorship  was  in- 
dispensable, the  dictatorship  of  an  energetic  Parlia- 
mentary oligarchy  was  at  least  as  hopeful  as  that  of  an 
oligarchy  of  soldiers.  When  the  soldiers  had  tried  their 
hands  and  failed,  it  was  to  some  such  plan  as  this  that, 
after  years  of  turmoil  and  vicissitude,  Milton  turned. 
At  worst  it  was  no  plan  that  either  required  or  justified 
violent  deposition  by  a  file  of  troopers. 

The  conference  in  Cromwell's  apartments  at  White- 
hall on  April  19th  was  instantly  followed  by  one  of 
those  violent  outrages  for  which  we  have  to  find  a  name 
in  the  dialect  of  continental  revolution.  It  had  been 
agreed  that  the  discussion  should  be  resumed  the  next 
day,  and  meanwhile  that  nothing  should  be  done  with 
the  bill  in  Parliament.  \Mien  the  next  morning  came, 
news  was  brought  to  \\'hitehall  that  the  members  had 
already  assembled,  were  pushing  the  bill  through  at 
full  speed,  and  that  it  was  on  the  point  of  becoming 
law  forthwith.  At  first  Cromwell  and  the  officers  could 
not  believe  that  Vane  and  his  friends  were  capable  of 
such   a   breach   of   their   word.     Soon   there   came   a 


334  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

second  messenger  and  a  third,  with  assurance  that  the 
tidings  were  true,  and  that  not  a  moment  was  to  be 
lost  if  the  bill  was  to  be  prevented  from  passing.  It  is 
perfectly  possible  that  there  was  no  breach  of  word  at 
all.  The  Parliamentary  probabilities  are  that  the  news 
of  the  conference  excited  the  jealousy  of  the  private 
members,  as  arrangements  between  front  benches  are 
at  all  times  apt  to  do,  that  they  took  the  business  into 
their  own  hands,  and  that  the  leaders  were  powerless. 
In  astonishment  and  anger  Cromwell,  in  no  more  cere- 
monial apparel  than  his  plain  black  clothes  and  grey 
worsted  stockings,  hastened  to  the  House  of  Commons. 
He  ordered  a  guard  of  soldiers  to  go  with  him.  That 
he  rose  that  morning  with  the  intention  of  following 
the  counsels  that  the  impatience  of  the  army  had  long 
prompted,  and  finally  completing  the  series  of  exclu- 
sions, mutilations,  and  purges  by  breaking  up  the  Par- 
liament altogether,  there  is  no  reason  to  believe.  Long 
premeditation  was  never  Cromwell's  way.  He  waited 
for  the  indwelling  voice,  and  more  than  once,  in  the 
rough  tempests  of  his  life,  that  demoniac  voice  was  a 
blast  of  coarse  and  uncontrolled  fury.  Hence  came 
one  of  the  most  memorable  scenes  of  English  history. 
There  is  a  certain  discord  as  to  details  among  our  too 
scanty  authorities — some  even  describing  the  fatal 
transaction  as  passing  with  much  modesty  and  as 
little  noise  as  can  be  imagined.  The  description  de- 
rived by  Ludlow  who  was  not  present,  from  Harrison 
who  was,  gathers  up  all  that  seems  material.  There 
appear  to  haxe  been  between  fifty  and  sixty  members 
present. 

Cromwell  sat  down  and  heard  the  debate  for  some  time. 
Then,  calling  to  Major-General  Harrison,  who  was  on  the 
other  side  of  the  House,  to  come  to  him,  he  told  him  that  he 


BREAKING   THE   PARLIAMENT        335 

judged  the  Parliament  ripe  for  a  dissolution  and  this  to  be  the 
time  for  doing  it.  The  major-general  answered,  as  he  since 
told  me,  "Sir,  the  work  is  very  great  and  dangerous:  there- 
fore I  desire  you  seriously  to  consider  of  it  before  you  engage 
in  it."  "  You  say  luell^'  replied  the  general,  and  thereupon 
sat  still  for  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  Then,  the  question 
for  passing  the  bill  being  to  be  put,  he  said  to  Major-General 
Harrison — "77/w  is  the  time :  I  must  do  it"  and  suddenly 
standing  up,  made  a  speech,  wherein  he  loaded  the  Parlia- 
ment with  the  vilest  reproaches,  charging  them  not  to  have  a 
heart  to  do  anything  for  the  public  good,  to  have  espoused 
the  corrupt  interest  of  presbytery  and  the  lawyers,  who  were 
the  supporters  of  tyranny  and  oppression  —  accusing  them  of 
an  intention  to  perpetuate  themselves  in  power;  had  they  not 
been  forced  to  the  passing  of  this  Act,  which  he  affirmed  they 
designed  never  to  observe,  and  thereupon  told  them  that  the 
Lord  has  done  with  them,  and  had  chosen  other  instruments 
for  the  carrying  on  his  work  that  were  more  worthy.  This  he 
spoke  with  so  much  passion  and  discomposure  of  mind  as  if 
he  had  been  distracted.  Sir  Peter  Wentworth  stood  up  to 
answer  him,  and  said  that  this  was  the  first  time  that  ever  he 
heard  such  unbecoming  language  given  to  the  Parliament, 
and  that  it  was  the  more  horrid  in  that  it  came  from  their  ser- 
vant, and  their  servant  whom  they  had  so  highly  trusted  and 
obliged.  But,  as  he  was  going  on,  the  general  stepped  into 
the  midst  of  the  House,  where,  continuing  his  distracted  lan- 
guage, he  said — '■'•Come,  come :  I  will  put  an  end  to  your  prat- 
ing.^'' Then,  walking  up  and  down  the  House  like  a  mad- 
man, and  kicking  the  ground  with  his  feet,  he  cried  out,  "  You 
are  no  Parliament ;  I  say  you  are  no  Parliament ;  I  will  put 
an  end  to  your  sitting ;  call  them  in,  call  them  in.'''  Where- 
upon the  sergeant  attending  the  Parliament  opened  the  doors; 
and  Lieutenant- Colonel  Wolseley,  with  two  files  of  muske- 
teers, entered  the  House;  which  Sir  Henry  Vane  observing 
from  his  place  said  aloud,  "This  is  not  honest;  yea,  it  is 
against  morahty  and  common  honesty."     Then  Cromwell  fell 


336  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

a-railing  at  him,  crying  out  with  a  loud  voice — ''Oh,  Sir  Henry 
Vane,  Sir  Henry  Vane,  the  Lord  deliver  me  from  Sir  Henry 
Vane  J "  Then,  looking  to  one  of  the  members,  he  said : 
"There  sits  a  drunkard"  .  .  .  ;  and,  giving  much  reviling 
language  to  others,  he  commanded  the  mace  to  be  taken 
away,  saying,  "  What  shall  we  do  with  this  bauble  ?  There, 
take  it  away."  He  having  brought  all  into  this  disorder, 
Major-General  Harrison  went  to  the  Speaker  as  he  sat  in  the 
chair,  and  told  him  that,  seeing  things  were  reduced  to  this 
pass,  it  would  not  be  convenient  for  him  to  remain  there. 
The  Speaker  answered  that  he  would  not  come  down  unless 
he  were  forced.  "  Sir,"  said  Harrison,  "  I  will  lend  you  my 
hand;  and  thereupon,  putting  his  hand  within  his,  the 
Speaker  came  down.  Then  Cromwell  applied  himself  to  the 
members  of  the  House  .  .  .  and  said  to  them :  "  //  is  you  that 
have  forced  me  to  this,  for  I  have  sought  the  Lord  night  and 
day  that  He  would  rather  slay  me  than  put  me  on  the  doing  of 
this  work  I "  [Then]  Cromwell  .  .  .  ordered  the  House  to  be 
cleared  of  all  the  members  .  .  .  ;  after  which  he  went  to  the 
clerk,  and  snatching  the  Act  of  Dissolution,  which  was  ready 
to  pass,  out  of  his  hand,  he  put  it  under  his  cloak,  and,  having 
commanded  the  doors  to  be  locked  up,  went  away  to 
Whitehall. 

The  fierce  work  was  consummated  in  the  afternoon. 
Cromwell  heard  that  the  Council  of  State,  the  creation 
of  the  destroyed  legislature,  was  sitting  as  usual. 
Thither  he  repaired  with  Lambert  and  Harrison  by  his 
side.  He  seems  to  have  recovered  composure.  "If 
you  are  met  here  as  private  persons,"  Cromwell  said, 
"you  shall  not  be  disturbed;  but  if  as  a  Council  of 
State,  this  is  no  place  for  you;  and  since  you  cannot 
btit  know  what  was  done  at  the  House  in  the  morning, 
so  take  notice  that  the  Parliament  is  dissolved." 
Bradshaw,  who  was  in  the  chair,  was  not  cowed.  He 
had    not    quailed    before    a    more    dread    scene    with 


BREAKING   THE   PARLIAMENT        337 

Charles  four  years  ago.  "Sir,"  he  replied,  "we  have 
heard  what  you  did  at  the  House  in  the  morning,  and 
before  many  hours  all  England  will  hear  it;  but,  sir, 
you  are  mistaken  to  think  that  the  Parliament  is  dis- 
solved ;  for  no  power  under  heaven  can  dissolve  them 
but  themselves;  therefore  take  you  notice  of  that." 

Whatever  else  is  to  be  said,  it  is  well  to  remember 
that  to  condemn  the  Rump  is  to  go  a  long  way  to- 
ward condemning  the  revolution.  To  justify  Crom- 
well's violence  in  breaking  it  up,  is  to  go  a  long  way 
toward  justifying  Hyde  and  even  Strafford.  If  the 
Commons  had  really  sunk  into  the  condition  described 
by  Oliver  in  his  passion,  such  ignominy  showed  that 
the  classes  represented  by  it  were  really  incompetent, 
as  men  like  Strafford  had  always  deliberately  believed, 
to  take  that  supreme  share  in  governing  the  country 
for  which  Pym  and  his  generation  of  reformers  had  so 
manfully  contended.  For  the  Remnant  was  the  quin- 
tessence left  after  a  long  series  of  elaborate  distilla- 
tions. They  were  not  Presbyterians,  moderates,  re- 
spectables, bourgeois,  pedants,  Girondins.  They,  or 
the  great  majority  of  them,  were  the  men  who  had  re- 
sisted a  continuance  of  the  negotiations  at  Newport. 
They  had  made  themselves  accomplices  in  Pride's 
Purge.  They  had  ordered  the  trial  of  the  king.  They 
had  set  up  the  Commonwealth  without  lords  or  mon- 
arch. They  were  deep  in  all  the  proceedings  of  Crom- 
wellian  Thorough.  They  were  the  very  cream  after 
purification  upon  purification.  If  they  could  not  gov- 
ern who  could  ? 

We  have  seen  the  harsh  complaints  of  Cromwell 
against  the  Parliament  in  1652,  how  selfish  its  members 
were,  how  ready  to  break  into  factions,  how  slow  in 
business,  how  scandalous  the  lives  of  some  of  them. 
Yet  this  seems  little  better  than  the  impatient  indict- 


338  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

ment  of  the  soldier,  if  we  remember  how  only  a  few 
months  before  the  French  agent  had  told  Mazarin  of 
the  new  rulers  of  the  Commonwealth :  "Not  only  were 
they  powerful  by  sea  and  land,  but  they  live  without 
ostentation.  .  .  .  They  were  economical  in  their 
private  expenses,  and  prodigal  in  their  devotion  to  pub- 
lic affairs,  for  which  each  one  toils  as  if  for  his  personal 
interests.  They  handle  large  sums  of  money,  which 
they  administer  honestly."  We  cannot  suppose  that 
two  years  had  transformed  such  men  into  the  guilty  ob- 
jects of  Cromwell's  censorious  attack.  Cromwell  ad- 
mitted, after  he  had  violently  broken  them  up,  that  there 
W'Cre  persons  of  honor  and  integrity  among  them,  who 
had  eminently  appeared  for  God  and  for  the  public 
good  both  before  and  throughout  the  war.  It  would  in 
truth  have  been  ludicrous  to  say  otherwise  of  a  body 
that  contained  patriots  so  unblemished  in  fidelity,  en- 
ergy, and  capacity  as  Vane,  Scot,  Bradshaw,  and 
others.  Nor  is  there  any  good  reason  to  believe  that 
these  men  of  honor  and  integrity  were  a  hopeless 
minority.  We  need  not  indeed  suppose  that  the  Rump 
was  without  time-servers.  Perhaps  no  deliberative  as- 
sembly in  the  world  ever  is  without  them,  for  time- 
serving has  its  roots  in  human  nature.  The  question  is 
what  proportion  the  time-servers  bore  to  the  whole. 
There  is  no  sign  that  it  was  large.  But  whether  large 
or  small,  to  deal  with  time-servers  is  part,  and  no  in- 
considerable part,  of  the  statesman's  business,  and  it 
is  hard  to  see  how  with  this  poor  breed  Oliver  could 
have  dealt  worse. 

Again,  in  breaking  up  the  Parliament  he  committed 
what  in  modern  politics  is  counted  the  inexpiable  sin 
of  breaking  up  his  party.  This  was  the  gravest  of  all. 
This  was  what  made  the  revolution  of  1653  a  turning- 
point.     The   Presbyterians   hated   him   as   the   great- 


BREAKING   THE   PARLIAMENT        339 

est  of  Independents.  He  had  already  set  a  deep  gulf 
between  himself  and  the  Royalists  of  every  shade  by 
killing  the  king.  To  the  enmity  of  the  legitimists  of 
a  dynasty  was  now  added  the  enmity  of  the  legitimists 
of  Parliament.  By  destroying  the  Parliamentary 
Remnant  he  set  a  new  gulf  between  himself  and  most 
of  the  best  men  on  his  own  side.  Where  was  the 
policy  ?  What  foundations  had  he  left  himself  to  build 
upon?  What  was  his  calculation,  or  had  he  no  calcu- 
lation, of  forces,  circumstances,  individuals,  for  the 
step  that  was  to  come  next?  When  he  stamped  in 
wrath  out  of  the  desecrated  House  had  he  ever  firmly 
counted  the  cost?  Or  was  he  in  truth  as  improvident 
as  King  Charles  had  been  when  he,  too,  marched  down 
the  same  floor  eleven  years  ago?  In  one  sense  his 
own  creed  erected  improvidence  into  a  principle.  "Own 
your  call,"  he  says  to  the  first  of  his  own  Parliaments, 
"for  it  is  marvelous,  and  it  hath  been  unprojected.  It 's 
not  long  since  either  you  or  we  came  to  know  of  it. 
And  indeed  this  hath  been  the  way  God  dealt  with  us 
all  along.  To  keep  things  from  our  own  eyes  all 
along,  so  that  we  have  seen  nothing  in  all  his  dispen- 
sations long  beforehand."  And  there  is  the  famous 
saying  of  his,  that  "he  goes  furthest  who  knows  not 
where  he  is  going" — of  which  Retz  said  that  it 
showed  Cromwell  to  be  a  simpleton.  We  may  at  least 
admit  the  peril  of  a  helmsman  who  does  not  forecast 
his  course. 

It  is  true  that  the  situation  was  a  revolutionary  one, 
and  the  Remnant  was  no  more  a  legal  Parliament  than 
Cromwell  was  legal  monarch.  The  constitution  had 
long  vanished  from  the  stage.  From  the  day  in  May, 
1641,  when  the  king  had  assented  to  the  bill  making  a 
dissolution  depend  on  the  will  of  Parliament,  down  to 
the  days  in  March,  1649,  ^vhen  the  mutilated  Commons 


340  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

abolished  the  House  of  Lords  and  the  office  of  a  king, 
story  after  story  of  the  constitutional  fabric  had  come 
crashing  to  the  ground.  The  Rump  alone  was  left  to 
stand  for  the  old  tradition  of  Parliament  and  it  was 
still  clothed,  even  in  the  minds  of  those  who  were  most 
querulous  about  its  present  failure  of  performance, 
with  a  host  of  venerated  associations — the  same  asso- 
ciations that  had  lifted  up  men's  hearts  all  through  the 
fierce  tumults  of  civil  war.  The  rude  destruction  of 
the  Parliament  gave  men  a  shock  that  awakened  in 
some  of  them  angry  distrust  of  Cromwell,  in  others  a 
broad  resentment  at  the  overthrow  of  the  noblest  of  ex- 
periments, and  in  the  largest  class  of  all,  deep  misgiv- 
ings as  to  the  past,  silent  self-cpestioning  whether  the 
whole  movement  since  1641  had  not  been  a  grave  and 
terrible  mistake. 

Guizot  truly  says  of  Cromwell  that  he  was  one  of 
the  men  who  know  that  even  the  best  course  in  political 
action  always  has  its  drawbacks,  and  who  accept,  with- 
out flinching,  the  difficulties  that  might  be  laid  upon 
them  by  their  own  decisions.  This  time,  however,  the 
day  was  not  long  in  coming  when  Oliver  saw  reason 
to  look  back  with  regret  upon  those  whom  he  now 
handled  with  such  impetuous  severity.  When  he 
quarreled  with  the  first  Parliament  of  his  protectorate, 
less  than  two  years  hence,  he  used  his  old  foes,  if  foes 
they  were,  for  a  topic  of  reproach  against  his  new  ones. 
"I  will  say  this  on  behalf  of  the  Long  Parliament, 
that  had  such  an  expedient  as  this  government  [the 
Instrument]  been  proposed  to  them;  and  could  they 
have  seen  the  cause  of  God  provided  for ;  and  been  by 
debates  enlightened  in  the  grounds  of  it,  whereby  the 
difficulties  might  have  been  cleared  to  them,  and  the 
reason  of  the  whole  enforced,  and  the  circumstances  of 
time  and  persons,  with  the  temper  and  disposition  of 


BREAKING  THE   PARLIAMENT         341 

the  people,  and  affairs  both  abroad  and  at  home  might 
have  been  well  weighed,  I  think  in  my  conscience — 
well  as  they  were  thought  to  love  their  seats — they 
would  have  proceeded  in  another  manner  than  you  have 
done."  To  cut  off  in  a  fit  of  passion  the  chance  of 
such  a  thing  was  a  false  step  that  he  was  never  able 
to  retrieve. 


I 


CHAPTER  VII 


THE    REIGN    OF    THE    SAINTS 

CROMWELL  was  now  the  one  authority  left  stand- 
ing. "By  Act  of  ParHament,"  he  said,  "I  was 
general  of  all  the  forces  in  the  three  nations  of  Eng- 
land, Scotland,  and  Ireland ;  the  authority  I  had  in  my 
hand  being  so  boundless  as  it  was."  This  unlimited 
condition  both  displeased  his  judgment  and  pricked  his 
conscience;  he  protested  that  he  did  not  desire  to  live 
in  it  for  a  single  day ;  and  his  protest  was  sincere.  Yet 
in  fact  few  were  the  days  during  the  five  years  and  a 
half  from  the  breaking  of  the  Parliament  to  his  death, 
when  the  green  withes  of  a  constitution  could  bind  the 
arms  of  this  heroic  Samson.  We  have  seen  how,  in  the 
distant  times  when  Charles  I  was  prisoner  at  Caris- 
brooke,  Cromwell,  not  without  a  visible  qualm,  had 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  scruples  of  Robert  Hammond 
the  doctrine  of  the  People's  Safety  being  the  Supreme 
Law.  Alas,  Salus  Populi  is  the  daily  bread  of  revolu- 
tions. It  was  the  foundation,  and  the  only  founda- 
tion, of  the  Cromwellian  dictatorship  in  all  its  chang- 
ing phases. 

After  the  rude  dispersion  of  the  Long  Parliament 
next  came  the  Reign  of  the  Saints.  No  experiment 
could  have  worked  worse.  Here  is  Cromwell's  rueful 
admission.  "Truly  I  will  now  come  and  tell  you  a 
story  of  my  own  weakness  and  folly.  And  yet  it  was 
342 


THE    REIGX    OF   THE   SAINTS         343 

done  in  my  simplicity,  I  dare  avow  it.  It  was  thought 
then  that  men  of  our  judgment,  who  had  fought  in 
the  wars  and  were  all  of  a  piece  upon  that  account, 
surely  these  men  will  hit  it,  and  these  men  will  do  it  to 
the  purpose,  whatever  can  be  desired.  And  truly  we 
did  think,  and  I  did  think  so,  the  more  blame  to  me. 
And  such  a  company  of  men  were  chosen,  and  did  pro- 
ceed to  action.  And  this  was  the  naked  truth,  that  the 
issue  was  not  answerable  to  the  simplicity  and  honesty 
of  the  design."  Such  was  Oliver's  own  tale  related 
four  years  afterward.  The  discovery  that  the  vast 
and  complex  task  of  human  government  needs  more 
than  spiritual  enthusiasm,  that  to  have  "very  scriptural 
notions"  is  not  enough  for  the  reform  of  stubborn 
earthly  things,  marks  yet  another  stage  in  Cromwell's 
progress.  He  was  no  idealist  turned  cynic — that 
mournful  spectacle — but  a  warrior  called  by  heaven,  as 
he  believed,  to  save  civil  order  and  religious  freedom, 
and  it  was  with  this  duty  hea\'y  on  his  soul  that  he 
watched  the  working  of  the  scheme  that  Harrison  had 
vehemently  pressed  upon  him.  As  Ranke  puts  it. 
Cromwell  viewed  his  own  ideals,  not  from  the  point  of 
subjective  satisfaction,  but  of  objective  necessity;  and 
this  is  one  of  the  marks  of  the  statesman.  In  the  same 
philosophic  diction,  while  the  fighting  men  of  a  polit- 
ical party  may  be  wrapped  up  in  the  absolute,  the 
practical  leader  is  bound  fast  by  the  relative. 

The  company  of  men  so  chosen  constituted  what 
stands  in  history  as  the  Little  Parliament,  or  parodied 
from  the  name  of  one  of  its  members.  Barebones'  Par- 
liament. They  were  nominated  by  Cromwell  and  his 
council  of  officers  at  their  own  will  and  pleasure,  helped 
by  the  local  knowledge  of  the  Congregational  churches 
in  the  country.  The  writ  of  summons,  reciting  how 
it  was  necessary  to  provide  for  the  peace,  safety,  and 


k 


344  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

good  government  of  the  Commonwealth,  by  commit- 
ting the  trust  of  such  weighty  affairs  to  men  with  good 
assurance  of  love  and  courage  for  the  interest  of  God's 
cause,  was  issued  in  the  name  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  cap- 
tain-general and  commander-in-chief.  One  hundred 
and  thirty-nine  of  these  summonses  went  out,  and  pres- 
ently five  other  persons  were  invited  by  the  convention 
itself  to  join,  including  Cromwell,  Lambert,  and  Har- 
rison. 

One  most  remarkable  feature  was  the  appearance  for 
the  first  time  of  five  men  to  speak  for  Scotland  and  six 
men  for  Ireland.  This  was  the  earliest  formal  fore- 
shadowing of  legislative  union.  Of  the  six  represen- 
tatives of  Ireland,  four  were  English  ofiicers",  including 
Henry  Cromwell ;  and  the  other  two  were  English  by 
descent.  However  devoid  of  any  true  representative 
quality  in  a  popular  sense,  and  however  transient  the 
plan,  yet  the  presence  of  delegates  sitting  in  the  name 
of  the  two  outlying  kingdoms  in  an  English  govern- 
ing assembly,  was  symbolical  of  that  great  consolidat- 
ing change  in  the  English  State  which  the  political 
instinct  of  the  men  of  the  Commonwealth  had  de- 
manded, and  the  sword  of  Cromwell  had  brought 
within  reach.  The  policy  of  incorporation  originated  in 
the  Long  Parliament.  With  profound  wisdom  they 
had  based  their  Scottish  schemes  upon  the  emancipa- 
tion of  the  common  people  and  small  tenants  from  the 
oppression  of  their  lords  ;  and  Vane,  St.  John,  Lambert. 
Monk,  and  others  had  to  put  the  plan  into  shape.  It 
was  the  curse  of  Ireland  that  no  such  emancipation  was 
tried  there.  In  Scotland  the  policy  encountered  two 
of  the  most  powerful  forces  that  affect  a  civilized  so- 
ciety, a  stubborn  sentiment  of  nationality,  and  the  bit- 
ter antagonism  of  the  church.  The  sword,  however, 
beat  down  military  resistance,  and  it  was  left  for  the 


THE    REIGN    OF    THE    SAINTS         345 

Instrument  of  Government  in  1653  to  adopt  the  policy 
which  the  men  of  the  Commonweakh  had  bequeathed 
to  it. 

Though  so  irregular  in  their  source,  the  nominees  of 
the  officers  were  undoubtedly  for  the  most  part  men  of 
worth,  substance,  and  standing.  Inspired  throughout 
its  course  by  the  enthusiastic  Harrison,  the  conven- 
tion is  the  high-water  mark  of  the  biblical  politics  of 
the  time,  of  Puritanism  applying  itself  to  legislation 
ix)litical  construction,  and  social  regeneration.  It 
hardly  deserves  to  be  described  as  the  greatest  attempt 
ever  made  in  history  to  found  a  civil  society  on  the 
literal  words  of  Scripture,  but  it  was  certainly  the 
greatest  failure  of  such  an  attempt.  To  the  Council 
Chamber  at  Whitehall  the  chosen  notables  repaired  on 
the  fourth  of  July  (1653),  a  day  destined  a  century 
and  more  later  to  be  the  date  of  higher  things  in  the 
annals  of  free  government.  They  seated  themselves 
round  the  table,  and  the  lord-general  stood  by  the  win- 
dow near  the  middle  of  it.  The  room  was  crowded 
with  officers.  Cromwell  in  his  speech  made  no  attempt 
to  hide  the  military  character  of  the  revolution  that 
had  brought  them  together.  The  indenture,  he  told 
them,  by  which  they  were  constituted  the  supreme  au- 
thority, had  been  drawn  up  by  the  advice  of  the  prin- 
cipal officers  of  the  army;  it  was  himself  and  his  fellow 
officers  who  had  vainly  tried  to  stir  up  the  Parliament ; 
he  had  been  their  mouthpiece  to  offer  their  sense  for 
them ;  it  was  the  army  to  whom  the  people  had  looked, 
in  their  dissatisfaction  at  the  breakdown  of  Parlia- 
mentary performance.  Yet  the  very  thinking  of  an 
act  of  violence  was  to  them  worse,  he  declared,  than 
any  battle  that  ever  they  were  in,  or  that  could  be,  to 
the  utmost  hazard  of  their  lives.  They  felt  how  bind- 
ing it  was  upon  them  not  to  grasp  at  power  for  them- 


346  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

selves,  but  to  divest  the  sword  of  all  power  in  the  civil 
administration.  So  now  God  had  called  this  new  su- 
preme authority  to  do  his  work,  which  had  come  to 
them  by  wise  Providence  through  weak  hands.  Such 
was  his  opening  story.  That  Cromwell  was  deeply 
sincere  in  this  intention  of  divesting  the  army  of 
supremacy  in  civil  affairs,  and  of  becoming  himself 
their  servant,  there  are  few  who  doubt.  But  we  only 
vindicate  his  sincerity  at  the  cost  of  his  sagacity.  The 
destruction  of  the  old  Parliament  that  had  at  least 
some  spark  of  legislative  authority;  the  alienation  of 
almost  all  the  stanchest  and  ablest  partizans  of  the 
scheme  of  a  Commonwealth ;  the  desperate  improba- 
bility of  attracting  any  large  body  of  members  by  the 
rule  of  the  Saints,  all  left  the  new  order  without  moral 
or  social  foundation,  and  the  power  of  the  sword  the 
only  rampart  standing. 

Meanwhile,  Oliver  freely  surrendered  himself  to  the 
spiritual  raptures  of  the  hour.  'T  confess  I  never 
looked  to  see  such  a  day  as  this,  when  Jesus  Christ 
should  be  so  owned  as  he  is  this  day  in  this  work. 
God  manifests  this  to  be  the  day  of  the  Power  of  Christ, 
having  through  so  much  blood,  and  so  much  trial  as 
hath  been  upon  these  nations,  made  this  to  be  one  of 
the  great  issues  thereof;  to  have  his  people  called  to 
the  supreme  authority."  Text  upon  text  is  quoted  in 
lyric  excitement  from  prophets,  psalmists,  and  apostles. 
Old  Testament  dispensation,  and  New ;  appeals  to  the 
examples  of  Moses  and  of  Paul,  who  could  wish  them- 
selves blotted  out  of  God's  book  for  the  sake  of  the 
whole  people;  the  verses  from  James  i:bout  wisdom 
from  above  being  pure  and  peaceable,  -^entle  and  easy 
to  be  entreated,  full  of  mercy  and  good  fruits ;  and  then 
at  last  the  sixty-eighth  Psalm  with  its  triumphs  so  ex- 
ceeding high  and  great. 


THE   REIGN   OF   THE   SAINTS         347 

So  far  as  the  speech  can  be  said  to  have  any  single 
practical  note,  it  is  that  of  Tolerance.  ''We  should  be 
pitiful  .  .  .  that  we  may  have  a  respect  unto  all, 
and  be  pitiful  and  tender  toward  all  though  of  differ- 
ent judgments.  .  .  .  Love  all,  tender  all,  cherish 
and  countenance  all,  in  all  things  that  are  good.  And 
if  the  poorest  Christian,  the  most  mistaken  Christian, 
shall  desire  to  live  peaceably  and  quietly  under  you — I 
say,  if  any  shall  desire  but  to  lead  a  life  of  godliness 
and  honesty,  let  him  be  protected."  Toleration  was 
now  in  Cromwell  neither  a  conclusion  drawn  out  by 
logical  reason,  nor  a  mere  dictate  of  political  expedi- 
ency. It  flowed  from  a  rich  fountain  in  his  heart  of 
sympathy  with  men,  of  kindness  for  their  sore  strug- 
gles after  saving  truth,  of  compassion  for  their  blind 
stumbles  and  mistaken  paths. 

A  few  weeks  began  the  dissipation  of  the  dream. 
They  were  all  sincere  and  zealous,  but  the  most  zealous 
were  the  worst  simpletons.  The  soldier's  jealousy  of 
civil  power,  of  which  Cromwell  had  made  himself  the 
instrument  on  the  twentieth  of  April,  was  a  malady 
without  a  cure.  The  impatience  that  had  grown  so 
bitter  against  the  old  Parliament,  soon  revived  against 
the  new  convention.  It  was  the  most  unreasonable 
because  the  convention  represented  the  temper  and 
ideas  of  the  army,  such  as  they  were,  and  the  failure 
of  the  convention  marks  the  essential  sterility  of  the 
army  viewed  as  a  constructive  party.  Just  as  it  is  the 
nature  of  courts  of  law  to  amplify  the  jurisdiction,  so 
it  is  the  well-known  nature  of  every  political  assembly 
to  extend  its  powers.  The  moderate  or  conservative 
element  seems  to  have  had  a  small  majority  in  the 
usual  balance  of  parties,  but  the  forward  men  made 
up  for  inferiority  in  numbers  by  warmth  and  assiduity. 
The  fervor  of  the  forward  section  in  the  Parliament 


348  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

was  stimulated  by  fanaticism  out  of  doors :  by  cries 
that  their  gold  had  become  dim,  the  ways  of  Zion  filled 
with  mourning  and  a  dry  wind,  but  neither  to  fan  nor 
to  cleanse  upon  the  land :  above  all  by  the  assurances 
of  the  preachers,  that  the  four  monarchies  of  Nebu- 
chadnezzar and  Cyrus,  of  Alexander  and  Rome,  had 
each  of  them  passed  away,  and  that  the  day  had  come 
for  the  fifth  and  final  monarchy,  the  Kingdom  of  Jesus 
Christ  upon  the  earth :  and  this,  no  mere  reign  set  up 
in  men's  hearts,  but  a  scheme  for  governing  nations 
and  giving  laws  for  settling  liberty,  property,  and  the 
foundations  of  a  commonwealth. 

The  fidelity  of  the  convention  to  Cromwell  was 
shown  by  the  unanimous  vote  that  placed  him  on  the 
Council  of  State;  but  the  great  dictator  kept  himself 
in  the  background,  and  in  good  faith  hoping  against 
hope  he  let  things  take  their  course.  "I  am  more 
troubled  now,"  said  he,  "with  the  fool  than  with  the 
knave."  The  new  men  at  once  and  without  leave 
took  to  themselves  the  name  of  Parliament.  Instead 
of  carrying  on  their  special  business  of  a  constituent 
assembly,  they  set  to  work  with  a  will  at  legislation, 
and  legislation  moreover  in  the  high  temper  of  root 
and  branch,  for  cursed  is  he  that  doeth  the  work  of  the 
Lord  negligently.  A  bill  was  run  through  all  its 
stages  in  a  single  sitting,  for  the  erection  of  a  high 
court  of  justice  in  cases  where  a  jury  could  not  be 
trusted  to  convict.  Ominous  language  was  freely 
used  upon  taxation,  and  it  was  evident  that  the  sacred 
obligations  of  supply  and  the  pay  of  the  soldiers  and 
sailors  were  in  peril.  They  passed  a  law  requiring  that 
all  good  marriages  must  take  place  before  a  justice  of 
the  peace,  after  due  publication  of  banns  in  some  open 
resort  sacred  or  secular.  Of  the  projects  of  law  re- 
form inherited  from  the  Long  Parliament  they  made 


THE    REIGN    OF    THE    SAINTS         349 

nonsense.  Before  they  had  been  a  month  in  session, 
they  passed  a  resohition  that  the  Court  of  Chancery 
should  be  wholly  taken  away  and  abolished ;  and  after 
three  bills  had  been  brought  in  and  dropped  for  carry- 
ing this  resolution  into  act,  they  read  a  second  time  a 
fourth  bill  for  summarily  deciding  cases  then  pending, 
and  arranging  that  for  the  future  the  ordinary  suits  in 
chancery  should  be  promptly  despatched  at  a  cost  of 
from  twenty  to  forty  shillings.  They  set  a  committee, 
without  a  lawyer  upon  it,  to  work  on  the  reduction  of 
the  formless  mass  of  laws,  cases,  and  precedents,  to  a 
code  that  should  be  of  no  greater  bigness  than  a  pocket- 
book.  The  power  of  patrons  to  present  to  livings  was 
taken  away,  though  patronage  was  as  truly  property  as 
land.  More  vital  aspects  of  the  church  question  fol- 
lowed. A  committee  reported  in  favor  of  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  body  of  State  Commissioners  with  power  to 
eject  unfit  ministers  and  fill  vacant  livings;  and  what 
was  a  more  burning  issue,  in  favor  of  the  maintenance 
of  tithe  as  of  legal  obligation.  By  a  majority  of  two 
(fifty-six  against  fifty- four)  the  House  disagreed  with 
the  report,  and  so  indicated  their  intention  to  abolish 
tithe  and  the  endowment  of  ministers  of  religion  by 
the  State.  This  led  to  the  crisis.  The  effect  of  pro- 
ceedings so  singularly  ill  devised  for  the  settlement  of 
the  nation  was  to  irritate  and  alarm  all  the  nation's 
most  powerful  elements.  The  army,  the  lawyers,  the 
clergy,  the  holders  of  property,  all  felt  themselves  at- 
tacked; and  the  lord-general  himself  perceived,  in  his 
own  words  afterward,  that  the  issue  of  this  assembly 
would  have  been  the  subversion  of  the  laws,  and  of  all 
the  liberties  of  their  nation,  the  destruction  of  the  min- 
isters of  the  gospel,  in  short  the  confusion  of  all  things ; 
and  instead  of  order,  to  set  up  the  judicial  law  of 
Moses,  in  abrogation  of  all  our  administrations.     The 


350  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

design  that  shone  so  radiantly  five  months  before  had 
sunk  away  in  clouds  and  vain  chimera.  Nor  had  the 
reign  of  chimera  even  brought  popularity.  Lilburne, 
the  foe  of  all  government,  whether  it  was  inspired  by 
folly  or  by  common-sense,  appeared  once  more  upon  the 
scene,  and  he  was  put  upon  his  trial  before  a  court  of 
law  for  offenses  of  which  he  had  been  pronounced 
guilty  by  the  Long  Parliament.  The  jury  found  him 
innocent  of  any  crime  worthy  of  death,  and  the  verdict 
was  received  with  shouts  of  joy  by  the  populace.  This 
was  to  demonstrate  that  the  government  of  the  Saints 
was  at  least  as  odious  as  the  government  of  the  dis- 
possessed Remnant. 

The  narrow  division  on  the  abolition  of  tithe  con- 
vinced everybody  that  the  ship  was  water-logged. 
Sunday,  December  nth,  was  passed  in  the  concoction 
of  devices  of  bringing  the  life  of  the  notables  to  an  end. 
On  Monday  the  Speaker  took  the  chair  at  an  early 
hour,  and  a  motion  was  promptly  made  that  the  sitting 
of  the  Parliament  was  no  longer  for  the  public  good 
and  therefore  that  they  should  deliver  up  to  the  lord- 
general  the  powers  they  had  received  from  him.  An 
attempt  to  debate  was  made,  but  as  no  time  was  to  be 
lost,  in  case  of  members  arriving  in  numbers  sufficient 
to  carry  a  hostile  motion,  the  Speaker  rose  from  his 
chair,  told  the  sergeant  to  shoulder  the  mace,  and  fol- 
lowed by  some  forty  members  who  were  in  the  secret 
set  forth  in  solemn  procession  to  Whitehall.  A  minor- 
ity kept  their  seats,  until  a  couple  of  colonels  with  a  file 
of  soldiers  came  to  turn  them  out.  According  to  a 
Royalist  story,  one  of  the  colonels  asked  them  what 
they  were  doing.  "We  are  seeking  the  Lord,"  was  the 
answer.  "Then  you  should  go  elsewhere,"  the  colonel 
replied,  "for  to  my  knowledge  the  Lord  has  not  been 
here  these  twelve  years  past."     We  have  Cromwell's 


THE    REIGN    OF   THE   SAINTS         351 

words  that  he  knew  nothing  of  this  intention  to  re- 
sign. If  so,  the  dismissal  of  the  fragment  of  the  mem- 
bers by  a  handful  of  troopers  on  their  own  author- 
ity is  strange,  and  shows  the  extraordinary  pitch  that 
military  manners  had  reached.  Oliver  received  the 
Speaker  and  his  retinue  with  genuine  or  feigned  sur- 
prise, but  accepted  the  burden  of  power  that  the  ab- 
dication of  the  Parliament  had  once  more  laid  upon 
him. 

These  proceedings  were  an  open  breach  with  the 
Saints,  but,  as  has  been  justly  said  (Weingarten),  this 
circumstance  involves  no  more  contradiction  between 
the  Cromwell  of  the  past  and  the  Protector,  than  there 
is  contradiction  between  the  Luther  who  issued  in  1520 
his  flaming  manifesto  to  the  Christian  nobles  of  the 
German  nation,  and  the  Luther  that  two  years  later 
confronted  the  misguided  men  who  supposed  them- 
selves to  be  carrying  out  doctrines  that  they  had  learned 
from  him.  Puritanism,  like  the  Reformation  gener- 
ally, was  one  of  those  revolts  against  the  leaden 
yoke  of  convention,  ordinance,  institution,  in  which, 
whether  in  individuals  or  in  a  tidal  mass  of  men,  the 
human  soul  soars  passionately  forth  toward  new  hori- 
zons of  life  and  hope.  Then  the  case  for  convention 
returns,  the  need  for  institution  comes  back,  the 
nature  of  things  will  not  be  hurried  nor  defied.  Re- 
actions followed  the  execution  of  the  king.  Painfully 
Milton  now,  five  years  later,  bewailed  the  fact  that  the 
people  with  "besotted  and  degenerate  baseness  of  spirit, 
except  some  few  who  yet  retain  in  them  the  old  Eng- 
lish fortitude  and  love  of  freedom,  imbastardized  from 
the  ancient  nobleness  of  their  ancestors,  are  ready  to 
fall  flat  and  give  adoration  to  the  image  and  memory 
of  this  man."  These  were  the  two  strong  floods  be- 
tween which,  in  their  ebb  and  flow,  Cromwell  found 


352  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

himself  caught.  His  practical  eye  discerned  it  all,  and 
what  had  happened.  Yet  this  was  perhaps  the  moment 
when  Cromwell  first  felt  those  misgivings  of  a  devout 
conscience  that  inspired  the  question  put  by  him  on 
his  death-bed,  whether  it  was  certain  that  a  man  once  in 
grace  must  be  always  in  grace. 


BOOK   FIVE 

i 
I 


I 


Book  five 

CHAPTER   I 


FIRST    STAGE    OF    THE    PROTECTORATE 


"I17HAT  are  all  our  histories,  cried  Cromwell  in 
VV  1655,  what  are  all  our  traditions  of  actions  in 
former  times,  but  God  manifesting  himself,  that  hath 
shaken  and  tumbled  down  and  trampled  upon  every- 
thing that  he  had  not  planted.  It  was  not  long  after 
that  Bossuet  began  to  work  out  the  same  conception 
in  the  glowing  literary  form  of  the  discourse  on  uni- 
versal history.  What  was  in  Bossuet  the  theme  of  a 
divine,  was  in  Cromwell  the  life-breath  of  act,  toil, 
hope,  submission.  For  him  the  drama  of  time  is  no 
stage-play,  but  an  inspired  and  foreordained  dispen- 
sation ever  unfolding  itself  "under  a  waking  and  all- 
searching  Eye,"  and  in  this  high  epic  England  had  the 
hero's  part.  "I  look  at  the  people  of  these  nations 
as  the  blessing  of  the  Lord,"  he  said,  "and  they  are  a 
people  blessed  by  God.  .  .  .  If  I  had  but  a  hope 
fixed  in  me  that  this  cause  and  this  business  was  of 
God,  I  would  many  years  ago  have  run  from  it.  .  .  . 
But  if  the  Lord  take  pleasure  in  England,  and  if  he 
will  of  us  good,  he  is  very  able  to  bear  us  up.  .  .  ." 
As  England  was  the  home  of  the  Chosen  People,  so 
also  he  read  in  all  the  providences  of  battle-fields,  from 

355 


356  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

Winceby  to  Worcester,  that  he  was  called  to  be  the 
Moses  or  the  Joshua  of  the  new  deliverance. 

Milton's  fervid  Latin  appeal  of  this  date  did  but  roll 
forth  in  language  of  his  own  incomparable  splendor, 
though  in  phrases  savoring  more  of  Pericles  or  Roman 
stoic  than  of  the  Hebrew  sacred  books,  the  thoughts 
that  lived  in  Cromwell.  Milton  had  been  made  sec- 
retary of  the  first  Council  of  State  almost  immediately 
after  the  execution  of  the  king  in  1649,  ^^'^^  ^^^  was 
employed  in  the  same  or  similar  duties  until  the  end  of 
Cromwell  and  after.  Historic  imagination  vainly 
seeks  to  picture  the  personal  relations  between  these 
two  master-spirits,  but  no  trace  remains.  They  must 
sometimes  have  been  in  the  council  chamber  together; 
but  whether  they  ever  interchanged  a  word  we  do  not 
know.  When  asked  for  a  letter  of  introduction  for  a 
friend  to  the  English  Ambassador  in  Holland  (1657), 
Milton  excused  himself,  saying,  "I  have  very  little  ac- 
quaintance with  those  in  power,  inasmuch  as  I  keep 
very  much  to  my  own  house,  and  prefer  to  do  so."  A 
painter's  fancy  has  depicted  Oliver  dictating  to  the 
Latin  secretary  the  famous  despatches  on  the  slaugh- 
tered Saints  whose  bones  lay  scattered  on  the  Alpine 
mountains  cold ;  but  by  then  the  poet  had  lost  his  sight, 
and  himself  probably  dictated  the  English  drafts  from 
Thurloe's  instructions,  and  then  turned  them  into  his 
own  sonorous  Latin.  He  evidently  approved  the 
supersession  of  the  Parliament,  though  we  should  re- 
member that  he  includes  in  all  the  breadth  of  his  pane- 
gyric both  Bradshaw  and  Overton,  who  as  strongly  dis- 
approved. He  bids  the  new  Protector  to  recall  the 
aspect  and  the  wounds  of  that  host  of  valorous  men 
who  with  him  for  a  leader  had  fought  so  strenuous  a 
fight  for  freedom,  and  to  revere  their  shades.  Further 
he  adjures  him  to  revere  himself,  that  thus  the  free- 


From  ihe  original  miniature  by  Samuel  Cooper  at  Montagu  House, 
by  permission  of  the  Duke  of  13uccleuch. 

JOHN    MILTON. 


THE  PROTECTORATE'S  FIRST  STAGE  357 

dom  for  which  he  had  faced  countless  perils  and  borne 
such  heavy  cares,  he  would  never  suffer  to  be  either 
violated  by  hand  of  his  or  impaired  by  any  other. 
"Thou  canst  not  be  free  if  we  are  not;  for  it  is  the  law 
of  nature  that  he  who  takes  away  the  liberty  of  others 
is  by  that  act  the  first  himself  to  lose  his  own.  A 
mighty  task  hast  thou  undertaken ;  it  will  probe  thee  to 
the  core,  it  will  show  thee  as  thou  art.  thy  carriage,  thy 
force,  thy  weight ;  whether  there  be  truly  alive  in  thee 
that  piety,  fidelity,  justice,  and  moderation  of  spirit, 
for  which  we  believe  that  God  hath  exalted  thee  above 
thy  fellows.  To  guide  three  mighty  states  by  counsel, 
to  conduct  them  from  institutions  of  error  to  a  wor- 
thier discipline,  to  extend  a  provident  care  to  furtherest 
shores,  to  watch,  to  foresee,  to  shrink  from  no  toil,  to 
flee  all  the  empty  shows  of  opulence  and  power — these 
indeed  are  things  so  arduous  that,  compared  with  them, 
war  is  but  as  the  play  of  children." 

Such  is  the  heroic  strain  in  which  the  man  of  high 
aerial  visions  hailed  the  man  with  strength  of  heart 
and  arm  and  power  of  station.  This  Aliltonian  glory 
of  words  marks  the  high-tide  of  the  advance  from  the 
homely  sages  of  1640  to  the  grand  though  transient 
recasting  of  the  fundamental  conceptions  of  national 
consciousness  and  life.  The  apostle  and  the  soldier 
were  indeed  two  men  of  different  type,  and  drew  their 
inspiration  from  very  different  fountains,  but  we  may 
well  believe  Aubrey  when  he  says  that  there  were  those 
who  came  over  to  England  only  to  see  Oliver  Pro- 
tector and  John  Milton. 


Four  days  sufficed  to  erect  a  new  government.     The 
scheme  was  prepared  by  the  officers  with  Lambert  at 


358  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

their  head.  Cromwell  fell  in  with  it,  hearing  little 
about  formal  constitutions  either  way.  On  the  after- 
noon of  December  i6th,  1653.  a  procession  set  out 
from  Whitehall  for  Westminster  Hall.  The  judges 
in  their  robes,  the  high  officers  of  government,  the  Lord 
Mayor  and  the  magnates  of  the  city,  made  their  way 
amid  two  lines  of  soldiers  to  the  Chancery  Court 
where  a  chair  of  state  had  been  placed  upon  a  rich 
carpet.  Oliver,  clad  in  a  suit  and  cloak  of  black  velvet, 
and  with  a  gold  band  upon  his  hat,  was  invited  by 
Lambert  to  take  upon  himself  tlie  office  of  Lord  Pro- 
tector of  the  Commonwealth  of  England,  Scotland, 
and  Ireland,  conformably  to  the  terms  of  an  Instru- 
ment of  Government  which  was  then  read.  The  lord- 
general  assented,  and  forthwith  took  and  subscribed 
the  solemn  oath  of  fidelity  to  the  matters  and  things 
set  out  in  the  Instrument.  Then,  covered,  he  sat  down 
in  the  chair  of  state  while  those  in  attendance  stood 
bareheaded  about  him.  The  commissioners  cere- 
moniously handed  to  him  the  great  seal,  and  the  Lord 
Mayor  proffered  him  his  sword  of  office.  The  Pro- 
tector returned  the  seal  and  sword,  and  after  he  had 
received  the  grave  obeisance  of  the  dignitaries  around 
him,  the  act  of  state  ended  and  he  returned  to  the  palace 
of  Whitehall,  amid  the  acclamations  of  the  soldiery 
and  the  half  ironic  curiosity  of  the  crowd.  He  was 
proclaimed  by  sound  of  trumpet  in  Palace  Yard,  at  the 
Old  Exchange,  and  in  other  places  in  London,  the 
Lord  Mayor  attending  in  his  robes,  the  sergeants  with 
their  maces,  and  the  heralds  in  their  gold  coats. 
Henceforth  the  Lord  Protector  "observed  new  and 
great  state,  and  all  ceremonies  and  respects  were  paid  to 
him  by  all  sorts  of  men  as  to  their  prince."  The  new 
constitution  thus  founding  the  Protectorate  was  the 
most  serious  of  the  expedients  of  that  distracted  time. 


THE  PROTECTORATE'S  FIRST  STAGE  359 

The  first  stage  of  the  Protectorate  was  in  fact  a 
near  approach  to  a  monarchical  system  very  like  that 
which  Strafford  would  have  set  up  for  Charles,  or 
which  Bismarck  two  hundred  years  later  set  up  for  the 
King  of  Prussia.  One  difference  is  that  Cromwell 
honestly  strove  to  conceal  from  himself  as  from  the 
world  the  purely  military  foundations  of  his  power. 
His  social  ideal  was  wide  as  the  poles  from  Strafford's, 
but  events  forced  him  round  to  the  same  political  ideal. 
A  more  material  difference  is  that  the  Protector  had  a 
powerful  and  victorious  army  behind  him,  and  Straf- 
ford and  his  master  had  none. 

On  the  breakdown  of  the  Barebones'  Parliament 
the  Sphinx  once  more  propounded  her  riddle.  How  to 
reconcile  executive  power  with  popular  supremacy, 
what  should  be  the  relations  between  executive  and 
legislature,  what  the  relations  between  the  church  and 
the  magistrate;  these  were  the  problems  that  divided 
the  dead  king  and  the  dead  Parliament,  that  had  baffled 
Pym  and  Hyde,  that  had  perplexed  Ireton  and  the  offi- 
cers, and  now  confronted  Oliver.  It  was  easy  to 
affirm  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  as  an  abstract 
truth.  But  the  machinery?  We  must  count  one  of 
the  curiosities  of  history  the  scene  of  this  little  group 
of  soldiers  sitting  down  to  settle  in  a  few  hours  the 
questions  that  to  this  day,  after  ages  of  constitution- 
mongering  and  infinitely  diversified  practice  and  ex- 
periment all  over  the  civilized  world,  beset  the  path  of 
self-governing  peoples.  No  doubt  they  had  material 
only  too  abundant.  Scheme  after  scheme  had  been 
propounded,  at  Oxford,  at  Uxbridge,  at  Newcastle,  at 
Newport.  The  army  had  drawn  up  its  Heads  of  Pro- 
posals, and  these  were  followed  a  few  days  before  the 
king  was  brought  to  the  scaffold  by  the  written  con- 
stitution known  as  the  Agreement  of  the  People.    The 


36o  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

officers  had  well-trodden  ground  to  go  upon,  and  yet  the 
journey  was  nearly  as  obscure  as  it  had  ever  been. 

In  face  of  the  lord-general,  as  in  face  of  the  Lord's 
Anointed,  the  difficulty  was  the  same,  how  to  limit  the 
power  of  the  executive  over  taxation  and  an  army, 
without  removing  all  limits  on  the  power  of  the  repre- 
sentative legislature.  Cromwell,  undoubtedly  in  ear- 
nest as  he  was  in  desiring  to  restore  Parliamentary 
government,  and  to  set  effective  checks  on  the  Single 
Person,  nevertheless  by  temperament,  by  habit  of  mind 
engendered  of  twelve  years  of  military  command,  and 
by  his  view  of  the  requirements  of  the  crisis,  was  the 
last  man  to  work  a  Parliamentary  Constitution.  A 
limited  dictator  is  an  impossibility,  and  he  might  have 
known  it,  as  Napoleon  knew  it.  If  Cromwell  and  his 
men  could  not  work  with  the  Rump,  if  they  could  not 
work  with  the  Saints,  the  officers,  as  they  rapidly  ham- 
mered together  the  Instrument  of  Government,  might 
have  known  that  no  ingenuity  would  make  their  brand- 
new  carpentering  water-tight. 

The  Magna  Charta  that  now  installed  Oliver  as 
Lord  Protector  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  survived 
for  over  three  years,  though  loose  enough  in  more  than 
one  essential  particular,  was  compact.  The  govern- 
ment was  to  be  in  a  single  person  and  a  Parliament, 
but  to  these  two  organs  of  rule  was  added  a  Council  of 
State.  This  was  an  imperfect  analogue  of  the  old 
privy  council  or  of  the  modern  cabinet.  Its  members 
were  named  in  the  Act  and  sat  for  life.  The  council 
had  a  voice,  subject  to  confirmation  by  Parliament,  in 
appointments  to  certain  of  the  high  offices.  Each  of  the 
three  powers  was  a  check  upon  the  other  two.  Then 
came  the  clauses  of  a  reform  bill,  and  Cromwell  has 
been  praised  for  anticipating  Pitt's  proposals  for  de- 
molishing rotten  boroughs ;  in  fact,  the  reform  bill  was 


THE  PROTECTORATE'S  FIRST  STAGE  361 

adopted  bodily  from  the  labors  of  Ireton,  Vane,  and 
the  discarded  ParHament. 

The  Parhament,  a  single  house,  was  to  sit  for  at 
least  fi\  e  months  in  every  three  years.  This  got  rid  of 
Cromwell's  bugbear  of  perpetuity.  The  Protector,  if 
supported  by  a  majority  of  his  council,  could  summon  a 
Parliament  in  an  emergency,  and  in  case  of  a  future 
war  with  a  foreign  state  he  had  no  option.  Scotland 
and  Ireland  were  each  to  send  thirty  members,  and  no 
Irish  Parliament  was  summoned  until  after  the  restor- 
ation. One  sub-clause  of  most  equivocal  omen  made 
a  majority  of  the  council  into  judges  of  the  qualifica- 
tions and  disqualifications  of  the  members  returned : 
and,  as  we  shall  see,  this  legislation  of  future  mutila- 
tions of  the  legislature  by  the  executive  did  not  long- 
remain  a  dead  letter.  Every  bill  passed  by  Parlia- 
ment was  to  be  presented  to  the  Protector  for  his  con- 
sent, and  if  he  did  not  within  twenty  days  give  his 
consent,  then  the  bill  became  law  without  it,  unless  he 
could  persuade  them  to  let  it  drop.  The  normal  size 
of  the  army  and  navy  was  fixed,  and  a  fixed  sum  was 
set  down  for  civil  charges.  The  Protector  and  council 
were  to  decide  on  ways  and  means  of  raising  the  rev- 
enue required,  and  Parliament  could  neither  lower 
the  charges  nor  alter  ways  and  means  without  the  Pro- 
tector's consent.  In  case  of  extraordinary  charge,  as 
by  reason  of  war,  the  consent  of  Parliament  was 
needed ;  but  if  Parliament  were  not  sitting,  then  the 
Protector  with  the  majority  of  his  council  had  power 
both  to  raise  money  and  to  make  ordinances,  until  Par- 
liament should  take  order  concerning  them.  This 
power  of  making  provisional  laws  was  not  exercised 
after  the  assembling  of  the  first  Parliament. 

The  two  cardinal  questions  of  control  of  the  army 
and  the  settlement  of  religion  were  decided  in  a  way 


362  OLIVER   CROMWELL 

little  dreamed  of  by  Eliot  or  Coke,  by  Pym  or  Hamp- 
den. WHiile  Parliament  was  sitting,  that  is  for  five 
months  out  of  three  years,  its  approval  was  required 
for  the  disposal  of  forces  by  land  and  sea ;  when  Parlia- 
ment was  not  sitting,  the  Protector,  with  the  assent  of 
a  majority  of  the  council,  could  do  as  he  pleased.  The 
religious  clauses  are  vague,  but  they  are  remarkable  as 
laying  down  for  the  first  time  with  authority  a  prin- 
ciple of  Toleration.  A  public  profession  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion  as  contained  in  the  Scriptures  was  to  be 
recommended  as  the  faith  of  these  nations,  and  the 
teachers  of  it  were  to  be  confirmed  in  their  subsistence. 
But  adherence  was  not  to  be  compulsory,  and  all 
Christians  outside  the  national  communion,  save  Pa- 
pists, Prelatists,  and  such  as  under  the  profession  of 
Christ  hold  forth  licentiousness,  were  to  be  protected 
in  the  exercise  of  their  own  creed.  So  far  had  re- 
formers traveled  from  the  famous  section  of  the  Grand 
Remonstrance  twelve  years  before,  where  the  first  stout 
forefathers  of  the  Commonwealth  had  explicitly  dis- 
avowed all  purpose  of  letting  loose  the  golden  reins 
of  discipline  in  church  government,  or  leaving  private 
persons  to  believe  and  worship  as  they  pleased.  The 
result  reduced  this  declaration  to  little  more  than  the 
plausible  words  of  a  pious  opinion.  The  Indepen- 
dents, when  they  found  a  chance,  were  to  show  them- 
selves as  vigorous  and  as  narrow  as  other  people. 

The  Instrument  of  Government  had  a  short  life,  and 
not  an  important  one.  It  has  a  certain  surviving  in- 
terest, unhke  the  French  constitutions  of  the  Year  III, 
the  Year  VIII,  and  other  ephemera  of  the  same  species, 
because,  along  with  its  sequel  of  the  Humble  Petition 
and  Advice  (1657),  it  is  the  only  attempt  in  English 
history  to  work  in  this  island  a  wholly  written  system, 
and  because  it  has  sometimes  been  taken  to  foreshadow 


THE  PROTECTORATE'S  FIRST  STAGE  2>^2> 

the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  The  American 
analogy  does  not  hold.  The  Cromwellian  separation 
of  executive  from  legislative  power  was  but  a  fitful 
and  confused  attempt.  Historically,  there  are  no  indi- 
cations that  the  framers  of  the  American  Constitution 
had  the  instrument  in  their  minds,  and  there  are.  I  be- 
lieve, no  references  to  it  either  in  the  pages  of  the 
"Federalist"  or  in  the  recorded  constitutional  debates 
of  the  several  States.  Nor  was  it  necessary  for  the 
American  draftsman  to  go  back  to  the  Commonwealth  ; 
their  scheme  was  based  upon  State  constitutions  already 
subsisting,  and  it  was  in  them  that  they  found  the 
principle  of  fundamentals,  or  constitutional  guarantees 
not  alterable  like  ordinary  laws.  Apart  from  historical 
connection  the  coincidences  between  the  Instrument 
and  the  American  Constitution  are  very  slight,  while 
the  differences  are  marked.  The  Protector  is  to  be 
chosen  by  the  council,  not  by  the  people.  He  has  no 
veto  on  legislation.  His  tenure  is  for  life;  so  is  the 
tenure  of  the  council.  There  is  no  direct  appeal  to 
the  electorate  as  to  any  executive  ofifice.  Parliament, 
unlike  Congress,  is  to  consist  of  one  House.  The  two 
schemes  agree  in  embodying  the  principle  of  a  rigid 
constitution,  but  in  the  Instrument  there  are,  according 
to  Oliver  himself,  only  four  fundamentals,  and  all  the 
rest  is  as  liable  to  amendment  or  repeal,  and  in  the 
same  way,  as  any  other  statute.  This  is  essentially 
different  from  the  American  system  alike  in  detail  and 
in  ])rinciple.  Make  by  act  an  American  president  master 
for  life,  with  the  assent  of  a  small  council  of  persons 
nominated  for  life,  of  the  power  of  the  sword,  of  the 
normal  power  of  the  purse,  of  the  power  of  religious 
establishment,  for  thirty-one  months  out  of  thirty-six. 
and  then  you  might  have  something  like  the  Instru- 
ment of  Government.     The  fatal  passion  for  parallels 


k 


364  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

has  led  to  a  still  more  singular  comparison.  Within 
the  compass  of  a  couple  of  pages  Mommsen  likens  the 
cynical  and  bloodthirsty  Sulla  to  Don  Juan  because  he 
was  frivolous,  to  George  Washington  because  he  was 
unselfish,  and  to  Oliver  Cromwell  because  they  both 
set  up  or  restored  order  and  a  constitution. 


In  virtue  of  their  legislative  capacity  Cromwell  and 
his  council  passed  more  than  eighty  ordinances  in  the 
eight  months  between  the  establishment  of  the  Pro- 
tectorate and  the  meeting  of  the  Parliament.  This  is 
called  Cromwell's  great  creative  period,  yet  in  truth  the 
list  is  but  a  meager  show  of  legislative  fertility.  Many 
of  them  were  no  more  than  directions  for  administra- 
tion. Some  were  regulations  of  public  police.  One 
of  them  limited  the  numbers  of  hackney  coaches  in 
London  to  two  hundred.  Duels  and  challenges  were 
prohibited,  and  to  kill  an  adversary  in  a  duel  was  made 
a  capital  offense.  Drunkenness  and  swearing  were 
punished.  Cock-fighting  was  suppressed,  and  so  for 
a  period  was  horse-racing.  There  were  laws  for  rais- 
ing money  upon  the  church  lands,  and  laws  for  fixing 
excise.  Among  the  earliest  and  most  significant  was 
the  repeal  of  the  memorable  enactment  of  the  first  days 
of  the  republic,  that  required  an  engagement  of  alle- 
giance to  the  Commonwealth.  This  relaxation  of  the 
republican  test  was  taken  by  the  more  ardent  spirits  as 
stamping  the  final  overthrow  of  the  system  consecrated 
to  freedom,  and  it  still  further  embittered  the  enmity 
of  those  who  through  so  many  vicissitudes  had  in  more 
hopeful  days  been  Cromwell's  closest  allies.  More 
far-reaching  and  fundamental  were  the  edicts  incor- 


THE  PROTECTORATE'S  FIRST  STAGE  365 

porating  Scotland  and  Ireland  into  one  Commonwealth 
with  England,  but  these  were  in  conformity  with  the 
bill  of  the  Long  Parliament  in  1652.  From  the  Long 
Parliament  also  descended  the  policy  of  the  edict  for 
the  settlement  of  the  lands  in  Ireland.  One  of  the 
cardinal  subjects  of  the  ordinances  in  this  short  period 
of  reforming  and  organizing  activity  was  the  Court  of 
Chancery.  The  sixty-seven  clauses  reforming  chan- 
cery are  elaborate,  but  they  show  no  presiding  mind. 
Imperious  provisions,  that  every  cause  must  be  deter- 
mined on  the  day  on  which  it  is  set  down  for  hearing, 
savor  more  of  the  sergeant  and  his  guard-room  than 
of  a  law-court  threading  its  way  through  mazes  of  dis- 
puted fact,  conflicting  testimony,  old  precedents,  new 
circumstances,  elastic  ])rinciples.  and  ambiguous 
application.  Lenthall,  now  Master  of  the  Rolls,  vowed 
that  he  would  be  hanged  up  at  the  gate  of  his  own 
court  rather  than  administer  the  ordinance.  In  revo- 
lutionary times  men  are  apt  to  change  their  minds,  and 
he  thought  better  of  it.  Others  were  more  constant. 
It  is  impossible  to  read  Whitelocke's  criticisms  without 
perceiving  that  he  and  his  brother  commissioner  of  the 
great  seal  had  good  grounds  for  their  refusal  to  exe- 
cute the  ordinance.  The  judgment  of  modern  legal 
critics,  not  unfriendly  to  Oliver,  is  that  his  attempt  at 
chancery  reform  shows  more  zeal  than  discretion ;  that 
it  substituted  hard  and  fast  rules  for  the  flexible  sys- 
tem that  was  indispensable  in  equity :  that  it  was 
spoiled  by  lack  of  moderation. 

Cromwell  possessed  far  too  much  of  the  instinct  for 
order  and  government — which  is  very  narrowly  de- 
scribed when  it  is  called  conservative — not  to  do  his 
best  to  secure  just  administration  of  the  law.  Some  of 
the  most  capable  lawyers  of  the  age  were  persuaded  to 
serve  in  the  office  of  judge,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that 


366  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

they  discharged  with  uprightness,  good  sense,  and 
efficiency  both  their  strictly  judicial  duties  and  the  im- 
portant functions  in  respect  of  general  county  busi- 
ness which  in  those  days  fell  upon  the  judges  of  assize. 
Slackness  in  this  vital  department  would  speedily  have 
dissolved  social  order  in  a  far  deeper  sense  than  any 
political  step,  even  the  execution  of  a  king  or  the  break- 
ing of  a  Parliament.  But  whenever  what  he  chose  to 
regard  as  reason  of  state  affected  him.  Cromwell  was 
just  as  ready  to  interfere  with  established  tribunals 
and  to  set  up  tribunals  specially  to  his  purpose,  as  if  he 
had  been  a  Stuart  or  a  Bourbon. 

One  of  the  strong  impulses  of  the  age  was  educa- 
tional. Cromwell  was  keenly  alive  to  it,  and  both  in 
the  universities  and  elsewhere  he  strove  to  further  it. 
Nothing  survived  the  Restoration.  Most  important 
of  all  Cromwell's  attempts  at  construction  was  the 
scheme  for  the  propagation  of  religion,  and  it  deserves 
attention.  The  dire  controversy  that  split  up  the 
Patriot  party  in  the  first  years  of  the  Long  Parliament, 
that  wrecked  the  throne,  that  was  at  the  bottom  of  the 
cjuarrels  with  the  Scots,  that  inspired  the  fatal  feud 
between  Presbyterian  and  Independent,  that  occupied 
the  last  days  of  the  Rump,  and  brought  to  naught  the 
reign  of  the  Saints,  was  still  the  question  that  went 
deepest  in  social  life.  The  forefathers  of  the  Com- 
monwealth had  sought  a  state  church  with  compulsory 
uniformity.  The  fervid  soul  of  Milton,  on  the  con- 
trary, was  eager  for  complete  disassociation  of  church 
from  state,  eager  "to  save  free  conscience  from  the  paw 
of  hireling  wolves  whose  gospel  is  their  maw."  So 
were  the  most  advanced  meii  in  the  Parliament  of  Bare- 
bones.  But  voluntaryism  and  toleration  of  this  un- 
compromising temper  was  assuredly  not  universal  even 
among  Independents.     Cromwell  had  nev^er  committed 


THE  PROTECTORATE'S  FIRST  STAGE  ^6^ 

himself  to  it.  In  adhesion  to  the  general  doctrine  of 
liberty  of  conscience,  he  had  never  wavered.  Perhaps 
it  was  the  noblest  element  in  his  whole  mental  equip- 
ment. He  valued  dogmatic  nicety  as  little  in  religion 
as  he  valued  constitutional  precision  in  politics.  His 
was  the  cast  of  mind  to  which  the  spirit  of  system  is  in 
every  aspect  wholly  alien.  The  presence  of  God  in  the 
hearts  of  men :  the  growth  of  the  perfect  man  within 
us :  the  inward  transformation,  not  by  literal  or  specu- 
lative knowledge,  but  by  participation  in  the  divine,  in 
things  of  the  mind  ;  no  compulsion  but  that  of  light  and 
reason — such  was  ever  his  faith.  I  am  not  a  man,  he 
said,  scrupulous  about  words  or  names  or  such  things. 
This  was  the  very  temper  for  a  comprehensive  set- 
tlement, if  only  the  nation  had  been  ripe  for  compre- 
hension. Cromwell  had  served  on  two  important  Par- 
liamentary committees  on  propagation  of  the  gospel 
after  his  return  from  Worcester.  There  on  one  occa- 
sion it  pleased  somebody  on  the  committee  zealously  to 
argue  against  a  Laodicean  indifferency,  professing  that 
he  would  rather  be  a  Saul  than  a  Gallic.  Then  Crom- 
well made  the  vehement  declaration  that  he  would 
rather  have  Mohammedanism  permitted,  than  that  one 
of  God's  children  should  be  persecuted.  But  the  ques- 
tion of  Toleration  was  one,  and  that  of  a  state-paid 
ministry  was  another.  Toleration,  with  the  two  stereo- 
typed exclusions  of  popery  and  prelacy,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  definitely  adopted,  so  far  as  words  went,  in 
two  sections  of  the  Instrument  of  Government,  and  so 
too  was  the  principle  of  a  public  profession  of  religion 
to  be  maintained  from  public  funds.  An  Episcopal 
critic  was  angry  at  the  amazing  fact  that  in  the  Magna 
Charta  of  the  new  constitution  there  was  not  a  word  of 
churches  or  ministers,  nor  anything  else  but  the  Chris- 
tian religion  in  general — as  if  the  Christian  religion  in 


368  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

general  were  but  something  meager  and  diminuti^T. 
The  usual  and  inevitable  controv^ersy  soon  sprung  into 
bitter  life  as  to  what  were  the  fundamentals  covered  by 
this  bland  and  benignant  phrase,  and  the  divines  had 
not  effectually  settled  their  controversy  when  they  were 
overtaken  by  the  Restoration.  What  Cromwell's  ordi- 
nance of  1654  did  was,  upon  the  principle  of  the  In- 
strument, to  frame  a  working  system.  In  substance  he 
adopted  the  scheme  that  Dr.  John  Owen,  now  dean  of 
Christ  Church,  had  submitted  to  the  Parliament  in 
1652,  and  which  was  in  principle  accepted  by  the  Rump 
in  its  closing  days.  A  story  is  told  by  Bishop  Wilkins, 
who  was  the  husband  of  Cromwell's  youngest  sister 
Robina,  that  the  Protector  often  said  to  him  that  no 
temporal  government  could  have  a  sure  support  with- 
out a  national  church  that  adhered  to  it,  and  that  he 
thought  England  was  capable  of  no  constitution  but 
Episcopacy.  The  second  imputation  must  be  apocry- 
phal, but  Cromwell  had  undoubtedly  by  this  time  firmly 
embraced  the  maxim  alike  of  King  Charles  and  of  the 
Long  Parliament,  that  the  care  of  religion  is  the  busi- 
ness of  the  state.  His  ordinances  institute  a  double 
scheme  for  expelling  bad  ministers,  and  testing  the  ad- 
mission of  better.  No  man  was  henceforth  to  be 
capable  of  receiving  a  stipend  who  failed  to  satisfy  of 
his  character,  conversation,  and  general  fitness  a  com- 
mission of  divines  and  laymen,  some  forty  in  number, 
divines  being  to  laymen  as  three  to  one.  By  the  side 
of  this  Commission  of  Triers  was  a  smaller  commis- 
sion of  Ejectors,  for  the  converse  task  of  removing 
ignorant,  negligent,  or  scandalous  persons.  The  tithe 
was  maintained  and  patronage  was  maintained,  only 
security  was  taken  for  the  fitness  of  the  presentee.  No 
theological  tests  were  prescribed.  No  particular  church 
organization  was  imposed,  though  Episcopacy  like  the 


From  a  miniature  by  J.  Hoskins  at  Windsor  Castle. 
By  special  permission  of  Her  Majesty  the  Queen, 

RICHARD   CROMWELL. 


THE  PROTECTORATE'S  FIRST  STAGE  369 

Prayer-book  was  forbidden.  Of  the  three  sorts  of 
godly  men,  said  Oliver,  Presbyterians,  Baptists,  and 
Independents,  so  long  as  a  man  had  the  root  of  the 
matter  in  him,  it  does  not  concern  his  admission  to  a 
living  to  whatever  of  the  three  judgments  he  may  be- 
long. The  parishes  were  to  adopt  the  Presbyterian 
or  the  Congregational  form  as  they  liked  best.  In 
practice,  outside  of  London  and  Lancashire,  where  the 
Presbyterianism  established  by  the  Parliament  in  1647 
had  taken  root,  the  established  church  during  the  Pro- 
tectorate was  on  the  Congregational  model,  with  so 
much  of  Presbyterianism  about  it  as  came  from  free 
association  for  discipline  and  other  purposes.  The 
important  feature  in  Oliver's  establishment  was  that  a 
man  who  did  not  relish  the  service  or  the  doctrine  or 
the  parson  provided  for  him  by  public  authority  at  his 
parish  church,  was  free  to  seek  truth  and  edification 
after  his  own  fashion  elsewhere.  This  wise  liberality, 
which  wins  Oliver  so  many  friends  to-day,  in  those 
times  bitterly  offended  by  establishment  the  host  of 
settled  voluntaries,  and  offended  the  greater  host  of 
rigorous  Presbyterians  by  Toleration.  It  may  well 
have  been  that  he  determined  to  set  up  his  system  of 
church  government  by  the  summary  way  of  ordinance 
before  Parliament  met,  because  he  knew  that  no  Par- 
liament even  partially  representative  would  pass  it. 

We  owe  the  best  picture  of  the  various  moods  of 
the  pulpit  men  at  this  interesting  moment  to  the  pro- 
foundest  theologian  of  them  all.  Baxter  recognized, 
like  other  people,  that  the  victorious  revolutionary  sol- 
dier was  now  endeavoring  to  dam  within  safe  banks 
the  torrent  that  the  Revolution  had  set  running.  Now, 
he  says,  Cromwell  exclaims  against  the  giddiness  of 
the  unruly  extremists ;  and  earnestly  pleads  for  order 
and   government.     This   putting  about  of  the  ship's 


370  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

lielm  affected  men's  minds  in  different  ways.  Some 
declared  that  they  wonid  rather  see  both  tithes  and  uni- 
versities thrown  overboard  than  submit  to  a  treacher- 
ous usurpation.  Others  said  that  it  was  Providence 
that  had  brought  the  odious  necessity  about,  whoever 
might  be  its  instrument;  and  necessity  required  them 
to  accept  the  rule  of  any  one  who  could  deliver  them 
from  anarchy.  Most  ministers  took  a  middle  way, 
and  it  was  Baxter's  own  way :  "I  did  in  open  confer- 
ence declare  Cromwell  and  his  adherents  to  be  guilty 
of  treason  and  rebellion,  aggravated  by  perfidiousness 
and  hypocrisy,  but  yet  I  did  not  think  it  my  duty  to 
rave  against  him  in  the  pulpit ;  and  the  rather  because, 
as  he  kept  up  his  approbation  of  a  godly  life  in  the 
general,  and  of  all  that  was  good  except  that  which  the 
interest  of  his  sinful  cause  engaged  him  to  be  against ; 
so  I  perceived  that  it  was  his  design  to  do  good  in  the 
main  .  .  .  more  than  any  had  done  before  him." 
Even  against  his  will  Baxter  admits  that  the  scheme 
worked  reasonably  well.  Some  rigid  Independents, 
he  says,  were  too  hard  upon  Arminians.  They  were 
too  long  in  seeking  evidence  of  sanctification  in  the 
candidate,  and  not  busy  enough  in  scenting  out  his 
Antinomianism  or  his  Anabaptism.  Still  they  kept 
the  churches  free  of  the  heedless  pastor  whose  notion 
of  a  sermon  was  only  a  few  good  words  patched  to- 
gether to  talk  the  people  asleep  on  Sunday,  while  all 
the  other  days  of  the  week  he  would  go  with  them  to 
the  ale-house  and  harden  them  in  sin.  Cromwell  him- 
self was  an  exemplary  patron.  "Having  near  one  half 
of  the  livings  in  England  in  his  own  immediate  dis- 
posal, he  seldom  bestoweth  one  of  them  upon  any  man 
whom  himself  doth  not  first  examine  and  make  trial  of 
in  person,  save  only  that  at  such  times  as  his  great 
affairs  happen  to  be  more  urgent  than  ordinary,  he 


THE  PROTECTORATE'S  FIRST  STAGE  371 

usetli  to  appoint  some  other  to  do  it  in  his  behalf; 
which  is  so  rare  an  example  of  piety  that  the  like  is  not 
to  be  found  in  the  stories  of  princes." 

His  ideal  was  a  state  church,  based  upon  a  compre- 
hension from  which  Episcopalians  were  to  be  shut  out. 
The  exclusion  was  fatal  to  it  as  a  final  settlement.  The 
rebellion  itself,  by  arresting  and  diverting  the  liberal 
movement  in  progress  within  the  church  when  the 
political  outbreak  first  began,  had  forever  made  a  real 
comprehension  impossible.  This  is  perhaps  the  heav- 
iest charge  against  it,  and  the  gravest  set-off  against 
its  indubitable  gains. 

The  mischief  had  been  done  in  the  years,  roughly 
speaking,  from  1643  ^^  1647,  ^v^ien  some  two  thousand 
of  the  Episcopal  clergy  were  turned  out  of  their  churches 
and  homes  with  every  circumstance  of  suffering  and 
hardship.  The  authors  of  these  hard  proceedings  did 
not  foresee  the  distant  issue,  which  made  so  deep  and 
dubious  a  mark  upon  the  social  life  of  England  for 
centuries  to  come.  When  the  day  of  reaction  arrived, 
less  than  twenty  years  later,  it  brought  cruel  reprisals. 
In  1662  the  Episcopalians,  when  the  wheel  brought 
them  uppermost,  ejected  two  thousand  nonconformists 
on  the  famous  day  of  Saint  Bartholomew,  the  patron 
saint  of  Christian  enormities;  and  the  nation  fell 
asunder  into  the  two  standing  camps  of  churchman  and 
dissenter,  which  in  their  strife  of  so  many  ages  for 
superiority  on  the  one  hand  and  equality  on  the  other, 
did  so  much  to  narrow  public  spirit  and  pervert  the 
noble  ideal  of  national  citizenship.  This  disastrous 
direction  was  first  imparted  to  church  polity  by  the 
Presbyterians,  but  Independents,  when,  in  their  turn 
of  faction,  they  grasped  power,  did  nothing  to  redress 
the  wrong  that  their  rivals  had  committed. 


CHAPTER  II 

A    QUARREL    WITH    PARLIAMENT 

WHITELOCKE,  in  his  mission  to  Sweden  ( 1653- 
1654),  saw  Oxenstierna,  the  renowned  minister 
who  had  played  so  great  a  part  in  the  history  of  Gus- 
tavus  Adolphus  and  of  the  Protestant  world — one  of 
the  sages,  not  too  many  of  them  on  his  own  showing, 
who  have  tried  their  hand  at  the  go\-ernment  of  men. 
The  chancellor  enquired  about  Cromwell's  age,  health, 
children,  family,  and  temper,  and  said  that  the  things 
that  he  had  done  argued  as  much  courage  and  wisdom 
as  any  actions  that  had  been  seen  for  many  years.  Still 
the  veteran  was  not  dazzled.  He  told  Whitelocke  that 
the  new  Protector's  strength  would  depend  upon  the 
confirmation  of  his  office  by  Parliament.  As  it  was. 
it  looked  to  him  like  an  election  by  the  sword,  and  the 
precedents  of  such  elections  had  always  proved  dan- 
gerous and  not  peaceable,  ever  since  the  choice  of  Ro- 
man emperors  by  the  legion.  Christina,  the  queen, 
went  deeper,  and  hit  on  a  parallel  more  to  the  point. 
"Your  general,"  she  said,  "hath  done  the  greatest 
things  of  any  man  in  the  world;  the  Prince  of  Conde 
is  next  to  him,  but  short  of  him."  Much  of  his  story, 
she  proceeded,  "hath  some  parallel  with  that  of  my  an- 
cestor Gustavus  the  First,  who  from  a  priv^ate  gentle- 
man of  a  noble  family  was  advanced  to  the  title  of 
372 


A  QUARREL  WITH   PARLIAMENT     373 

Marshal  of  Sweden,  because  he  had  risen  up  and  res- 
cued his  country  from  the  bondage  and  oppression 
which  the  King  of  Denmark  had  put  upon  them,  and 
expelled  that  king;  and  for  his  reward  he  was  at  last 
elected  King  of  Sweden,  and  I  believe  that  your  gen- 
eral will  be  King  of  England  in  conclusion."  "Pardon 
me.  Madam,"  replied  the  sedate  Whitelocke,  "that  can- 
not be,  because  England  is  resolved  into  a  Common- 
wealth :  and  my  general  hath  already  sufficient  power 
and  greatness,  as  general  of  all  their  forces  both  by  sea 
and  land,  which  may  content  him."  "Resolve  what 
you  will,"  the  queen  insisted,  "I  believe  he  resolves  to 
ht  king;  and  hardly  can  any  power  or  greatness  be 
called  sufficient,  when  the  nature  of  man  is  so  prone  as 
in  these  days  to  all  ambition."  Whitelocke  could  only 
say  that  he  found  no  such  nature  in  his  general.  Yet 
it  needed  no  ambition,  but  only  inevitable  memory  of 
near  events,  to  recall  to  Cromwell  the  career  of  Gus- 
tavus  Vasa,  and  we  may  be  sure  the  case  often  flitted 
through  his  mind. 

Two  Parliaments  were  held  during  the  Protectorate, 
the  first  of  them  assembling  in  1654  on  the  third  of  Sep- 
tember, the  famous  anniversary  day  of  the  Cromwel- 
lian  calendar.  It  lasted  barely  five  months.  A  glance 
at  the  composition  of  it  was  enough  to  disclose  the  ele- 
ments of  a  redoubtable  opposition.  The  ghost  of  the 
Long  Parliament  was  there  in  the  persons  of  Brad- 
shaw,  Scott,  Hazelrigg,  and  others,  and  although  Vane 
was  absent,  the  spirit  of  irreconcilable  alienation  from 
a  personal  government  resting  on  the  drawn  sword  was 
"both  present  and  active.  No  Royalist  was  eligible, 
but  the  Presbyterians  of  what  would  now  be  called  the 
extreme  right  were  not  far  from  Royalists,  and  even 
the  Presbyterians  of  the  center  could  have  little  ardor 
for  a  man  and  a  system  that  marked  the  triumph  of  the 


374  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

hated  Independents.  The  material  for  combinations 
unfriendly  to  the  government  was  only  too  evident. 

They  all  heard  a  sermon  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
where  the  Protector  had  gone  in  his  coach  with  pages, 
lackeys,  lifeguards,  in  full  state.  Henry  Cromwell 
and  Lambert  sat  with  him  bareheaded  in  the  coach, 
perhaps  in  their  different  ways  the  two  most  capable 
of  all  the  men  about  him.  After  the  sermon  they 
crossed  over  from  the  Abbey  to  the  Painted  Chamber, 
and  there  Oliver  addressed  them  in  one  of  his  strange 
speeches — not  coherent,  not  smooth,  not  always  even 
intelligible,  but  with  a  strain  of  high-hearted  fervor 
in  them  that  pierced  through  rugged  and  uncouth 
forms ;  with  the  note  of  a  strong  man  having  great 
things  to  say,  and  wrestling  with  their  very  greatness 
in  saying  them ;  often  rambling,  discursive,  and  over- 
loaded ;  often  little  better  than  rigmarole,  even  though 
the  rigmarole  be  lighted  now  and  again  with  the  flash 
of  a  noble  thought  or  penetrating  phrase ;  marked  by  a 
curious  admixture  of  the  tone  of  the  statesman's  coun- 
cil-chamber with  the  tone  of  the  ranter's  chapel ;  still 
impressive  by  their  laboring  sincerity,  by  the  weight  of 
their  topics,  and  by  that  which  is  the  true  force  of  all 
oratory  worth  talking  about,  the  momentum  of  the 
orator's  history,  personality,  and  purpose. 

The  Protector  opened  on  a  high  and  characteristic 
note,  by  declaring  his  belief  that  they  represented  not 
only  the  interests  of  three  great  nations,  but  the  in- 
terest of  all  the  Christian  world.  This  was  no  rhetor- 
ician's phrase,  but  a  vivid  and  unchanging  ideal  in  his 
mind  after  he  had  gained  a  position  lofty  enough  to 
open  to  his  gaze  the  prospect  beyond  the  English 
shores.  Here  hyperbole  ended,  and  the  speech  became 
a  protest  against  the  Leveling  delusions  of  the  Saints 
and  the  extremists;  a  vindication  of  the  policy  of  the 


A  QUARREL  WITH   PARLIAMENT     375 

government  in  making-  peace  abroad,  and  saving  trea- 
sure and  settling  religion  at  home ;  and  an  exhortation 
to  a  holy  and  gracious  understanding  of  one  another 
and  their  business.  The  deeply  marked  difference  in 
tone  from  the  language  in  which  he  had  opened  the 
Little  Parliament  indicates  the  growing  reaction  in 
the  Protector's  own  mind,  and  the  rapidity  with  which 
he  was  realizing  the  loud  call  for  conservative  and 
governing  quality  in  face  of  the  revolutionary  wreck- 
age. 

The  specters  of  old  dispute  at  once  rose  up.  Those 
who  could  recall  the  quarrel  between  king  and  Parlia- 
ment found  that  after  all  nothing  was  settled,  hardly 
even  so  much  as  that  the  government  of  the  three 
kingdoms  should  be  a  Parliamentary  government. 
The  mutual  suspicions  of  Parliament  and  army 
were  as  much  alive  as  ever.  The  members  no  sooner 
returned  to  their  own  chamber  than  they  began  in- 
stantly to  consider  the  constitution  under  which  they 
existed.  In  other  words,  they  took  themselves  seri- 
ously. No  Parliament  supposing  itself  clothed  with 
popular  authority  could  have  been  expected  to  accept 
without  criticism  a  ready-made  scheme  of  government 
fastened  on  it  by  a  military  junto.  If  the  scheme  was 
to  be  Parliamentary,  nothing  could  be  more  certain 
than  that  Parliament  itself  must  make  it  so.  A  Pro- 
tector by  right  of  the  army  was  as  little  tolerable  to  the 
new  Parliament  as  a  king  by  divine  right  had  been  to 
the  old.  They  sat  there  by  the  authority  of  the  good 
people  of  England,  and  how  could  it  be  contended  that 
this  authority  did  not  include  the  right  of  judging  the 
system  on  which  the  good  people  of  England  were 
henceforth  to  be  governed? 

That  was  the  very  ground  on  which  Oliver  had 
quarreled  with  the  Rump.     He  now  dealt  with  the  first 


3/6  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

Parliament  of  the  Protectorate  as  decisively,  if  not 
quite  so  passionately,  as  with  the  Parliament  of  the 
Commonwealth.  After  constitutional  discussion  had 
gone  on  for  less  than  a  fortnight,  members  one  morn- 
ing found  Westminster  Hall  and  its  approaches  full  of 
soldiers,  the  door  of  the  House  locked  in  their  faces, 
and  only  the  gruff  explanation  that  the  Protector  de- 
sired them  to  meet  him  in  the  Painted  Chamber.  Here 
Oliver  addressed  them  in  language  of  striking  force, 
winding  up  with  an  act  of  power  after  the  model  of 
Pride's  Purge  and  the  other  arbitrary  exclusions.  His 
keynote  was  patient  and  argumentative  remonstrance, 
but  he  did  not  mince  his  meaning  and  he  took  high 
ground.  He  reminded  them  that  it  was  he  who  by  the 
Instrument  was  laying  down  power,  not  assuming  it. 
The  authority  he  had  in  his  hand,  he  told  them,  was 
boundless.  It  was  only  of  his  own  will  that  on  this 
arbitrary  power  he  accepted  limits.  His  acceptance 
was  approved  by  a  vast  body  of  public  opinion ;  first  by 
the  soldiers,  who  were  a  very  considerable  part  of  these 
nations,  when  there  was  nothing  to  keep  things  in 
order  but  the  sword ;  second  by  the  capital  city  of  Lon- 
don, and  by  Yorkshire,  the  greatest  county  in  England  ; 
third  by  the  judges  of  the  land;  and  last  of  all  by  the 
Parliament  itself.  For  had  not  the  members  been 
chosen  on  a  written  indenture,  with  the  proviso  that 
they  should  not  have  power  to  alter  the  government  by 
a  single  person  and  a  Parliament.  Some  things  in  the 
Instrument,  he  said,  were  fundamental,  others  were 
only  circumstantial.  The  circumstantials  they  might 
try  to  amend  as  they  might  think  best.  But  the  four 
fundamentals — government  by  a  single  person  and  a 
Parliament,  liberty  of  conscience  as  a  natural  right,  the 
non-perpetuation  of  Parliament,  the  divided  or  bal- 
anced control  of  the  militia — these  were  things  not  to 


From  the  portrait  at  Chequers  Court,  by  permission  of  Mrs.  Frankland-Russell-Astley. 
HENRY  CROMWELL. 


A  QUARREL  WITH   PARLIAMENT     177 

be  parted  with  and  not  to  be  touched.  "The  wilful 
throwing  away  of  this  government,  such  as  it  is,  so 
owned  Ijy  God,  so  approved  by  men,  were  a  thing 
which,  and  in  reference  not  to  my  good,  but  to  the  good 
of  these  nations  and  of  posterity,  I  can  sooner  be  will- 
ing to  be  rolled  into  my  grave  and  buried  with  infamy, 
than  I  can  give  my  consent  unto." 

Then  the  stroke  fell.  As  they  had  slighted  the  au- 
thority that  called  them,  he  told  them  that  he  had 
caused  a  stop  to  be  put  to  their  entrance  into  the  Par- 
liament House,  until  they  had  signed  a  promise  to  be 
true  and  faithful  to  the  Lord  Protector  and  the  Com- 
monwealth, and  not  to  alter  the  government  as  settled 
in  a  single  person  and  a  Parliament.  The  test  was 
certainly  not  a  narrow  nor  a  rigid  one,  and  within  a 
few  days  some  three  hundred  out  of  the  four  hundred 
and  sixty  subscribed.  The  rest,  including  Bradshaw. 
Hazelig,  and  others  of  that  stalwart  group  refused 
to  sign,  and  went  home.  Such  was  the  Protector's 
short  w^ay  with  a  Parliamentary  opposition. 

The  purge  was  drastic,  but  it  availed  little.  By  the 
very  law  of  its  being  the  Parliament  went  on  with  the 
interrupted  debate.  Ample  experience  has  taught  us 
since  those  days  that  there  is  no  such  favorite  battle- 
ground for  party  conflict  as  a  revision  of  a  constitution. 
They  now  passed  a  resolution  making  believe  that 
Oliver's  test  was  their  own.  They  affirmed  the  fun- 
damentals about  the  double  seat  of  authority,  about 
Oliver's  Protectorate  for  life,  about  a  Parliament  every 
three  years,  as  gravely  as  if  members  had  not  just 
signed  a  solemn  promise  not  to  reject  them.  Then 
they  made  their  way  through  the  rest  of  the  two-and- 
forty  articles  of  the  Instrument,  expanding  them  into 
sixty.  They  fought  the  question  whether  the  Protec- 
torate should  be  hereditary,  and  by  a  large  majority 


378  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

decided  that  it  should  not.  Protector  and  Parliament 
wrre  to  determine  in  conjuction  what  composed  the 
doctrines  within  the  public  profession  of  religion,  and 
what  on  the  other  hand  were  damnable  heresies;  but 
these  two  things  defined,  then  Parliament  could  pass 
bills  dealing  with  heresies,  or  with  the  teaching  and  dis- 
cipline of  established  ministers,  over  the  head  of  the 
Protector.  On  the  all-important  chapter  of  the  mili- 
tary forces,  the  Parliament  was  as  much  bent  upon  ex- 
tending its  association  in  authority  with  the  Proteetor, 
as  the  Protector  had  in  old  days  been  bent  upon  the 
same  thing  in  respect  of  King  Charles.  During  his 
life  Parliament  was  to  have  a  voice  in  fixing  the  num- 
bers of  the  armed  force;  after  his  death,  it  was  to  de- 
cide the  disposal  of  it ;  and  the  sum  fixed  for  it  was  to 
be  reconsidered  by  Parliament  five  years  later.  In  all 
this  there  was  nothing  unreasonable,  if  Parliament  was 
in  reality  to  be  a  living  organ.  Such  was  the  work  of 
revision. 

It  was  now  that  Oliver  realized  that  perhaps  he 
might  as  well  have  tried  to  live  with  the  Rump.  We 
have  already  seen  the  words  in  which  he  almost  said 
as  much.  The  strange  irony  of  events  had  brought 
him  within  sight  of  the  doctrines  of  Strafford  and  of 
Charles,  and  showed  him  to  have  as  little  grasp  of 
Parliamentary  rule  and  as  little  love  of  it  as  either  of 
them.  He  was  determined  not  to  accept  the  revised 
constitution.  "Though  some  may  think  that  it  is  an 
hard  thing,"  he  said,  "to  raise  money  without  Parlia- 
mentary authority  upon  this  nation,  yet  I  have  another 
argument  to  the  good  people  of  this  nation,  whether 
they  prefer  having  their  will,  though  it  be  their  de- 
struction, rather  than  comply  with  things  of  Neces- 
sity." But  this  is  the  principle  of  pure  absolutism. 
Then  as  to  the  armed  forces,  though  for  the  present 


A  QUARREL  WITH  PARLIAMENT     379 

that  the  Protector  should  have  in  his  power  the  miHtia 
seems  the  hardest  thing,  "y^t,  if  the  power  of  the  militia 
should  be  yielded  up  at  such  a  time  as  this,  when  there 
is  as  much  need  of  it  to  keep  this  cause,  as  there  was  to 
get  it  for  the  sake  of  this  cause, what  would  become  of 
us  all  ?"  If  he  were  to  yield  up  at  any  time  the  power 
of  the  militia,  how  could  he  do  the  good  he  ought,  or 
hinder  Parliament  from  making  themselves  perpetual, 
or  imposing  what  religion  they  pleased  upon  men's 
conscience  ? 

In  other  words,  Cromwell  did  not  in  his  heart  believe 
that  any  Parliament  was  to  be  trusted.  He  may  have 
been  right,  but  then  this  meant  a  dead-lock,  and  what 
way  could  be  devised  out  of  it?  The  representatives 
were  assuredly  not  to  blame  for  doing  their  best  to 
convert  government  by  the  sword  into  that  Parlia- 
mentary government  which  was  the  very  object  of  the 
civil  war,  and  which  was  still  both  the  professed  and 
the  real  object  of  Cromwell  himself.  What  he  did  was 
to  dissolve  them  at  the  first  hour  at  which  the  Instru- 
ment gave  him  the  right. 

A  remarkable  passage  occurs  in  one  of  the  letters  of 
Henry  Cromwell  to  Thurloe  two  years  later  (March 
4,  1657),  which  sheds  a  flood  of  light  on  this  side  of 
the  Protectorate  from  its  beginning  to  the  end.  The 
case  could  not  be  more  w^isely  propounded.  "I  wish 
his  highness  could  consider  how  casual  [incalculable] 
the  motions  of  a  Parliament  are,  and  how  many  of 
them  are  called  before  one  be  found  to  answer  the  ends 
thereof;  and  that  it  is  the  natural  genius  of  such  great 
assemblies  to  be  various,  inconsistent,  and  for  the  most 
part  froward  with  their  superiors ;  and  therefore  that 
he  would  not  wholly  reject  so  much  of  what  they  offer 
as  is  necessary  to  the  public  welfare.  And  the  Lord 
gave  him  to  see  how  much  safer  it  is  to  rely  upon 


38o  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

persons  of  estate,  interest,  integrity,  and  wisdom,  than 
upon  such  as  have  so  amply  discovered  their  envy  and 
ambition,  and  whose  facidty  it  is  by  continuing  of  con- 
fusion to  support  themselves."  How  much  safer,  that 
is  to  say,  to  rely  upon  a  Parliament  with  all  its  slovenly, 
slow,  and  froward  ways,  than  upon  a  close  junto  of 
military  grandees  with  a  standing  army  at  their  back. 
This  is  what  the  nation  also  thought,  and  burned  into 
its  memory  for  a  century  to  come.  Here  we  have  the 
master-key  to  Cromwell's  failure  as  a  constructive 
statesman. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE    MILITARY    DICTATORSHIP 

WITH  the  dismissal  of  the  first  ParHament  a 
new  era  began.  For  twenty  months  the  Pro- 
tectorate was  a  system  of  despotic  rule,  as  undisguised 
as  that  of  Tudor  or  Stuart.  Yet  it  was  not  the  dicta- 
torship of  Elizabeth,  for  Cromwell  shared  authority 
both  in  name  and  fact  with  the  council,  that  is,  with  the 
leaders  of  the  army.  What  were  the  working  rela- 
tions between  Oliver  and  the  eighteen  men  who  com- 
posed his  Council  of  State,  and  to  what  extent  his 
policy  was  inspired  or  modified  by  them,  we  cannot 
confidently  describe.  That  he  had  not  autocratic 
power,  the  episode  of  the  kingship  in  1657  will  show 
us.  That  his  hand  was  forced  on  critical  occasions  we 
know. 

The  latter  half  of  1654  has  sometimes  been  called 
the  grand  epoch  of  Oliver's  government.  Ireland  and 
Scotland  were  in  good  order;  he  had  a  surplus  in  the 
chest ;  the  army  and  navy  seemed  loyal ;  his  star  was 
rising  high  among  the  European  constellations.  But 
below  the  surface  lurked  a  thousand  perils,  and  the 
difficulties  of  government  were  enormous.  So  hard 
must  it  inevitably  be  to  carry  on  conservative  policy 
without  a  conservative  base  of  operations  at  any  pomt 
of  the  compass.  Oliver  had  reproached  his  Parlia- 
ment with  making  themselves  a  shade  under  which 
381 


382  OLR^ER  CROMWELL 

weeds  and  nettles,  briars  and  thorns,  had  thriven. 
They  were  Hke  a  man,  he  told  them,  who  should  protest 
about  his  liberty  of  walking  abroad,  or  his  right  to  take 
a  journey,  when  all  the  time  his  house  was  in  a  blaze. 
The  conspiracies  against  public  order  and  the  founda- 
tions of  it  were  manifold.  A  serious  plot  for  the  Pro- 
tector's assassination  had  been  brought  to  light  in  the 
summer  of  1654,  and  Gerard  and  Vowel,  two  of  the 
conspirators,  had  been  put  to  death  for  it.  They  were 
to  fall  upon  him  as  he  took  his  customary  ride  out  from 
Whitehall  to  Hampton  Court  on  a  Saturday  afternoon. 
The  king  across  the  water  was  aware  of  Gerard's  de- 
sign, and  encouraged  him  in  it  in  spite  of  some  of  his 
advisers  who  thought  assassination  impolitic.  It  was 
still  a  device  in  the  manners  of  the  age.  and  Oliver's 
share  in  the  execution  of  the  king  was  taken,  in  many 
minds  to  whom  it  might  otherwise  have  been  repug- 
nant, in  his  case  to  justify  sinister  retaliation. 

The  schisms  created  in  the  republican  camp  by  the 
dispersion  of  the  old  Parliament  and  the  erection  of 
the  Protectorate  naturally  kindled  new  hopes  in  the 
breasts  of  the  Royalists.  Charles,  with  the  sanguine 
credulity  common  to  pretenders,  encouraged  them.  If 
those,  he  told  them,  who  wished  the  same  thing  only 
kne\\-  each  other's  mind,  the  work  would  be  done  with- 
out any  difficulty.  The  only  condition  needed  was  a 
handsome  appearance  of  a  rising  in  one  place,  and  then 
the  rest  would  assuredly  not  sit  still.  All  through  the 
last  six' months  of  1654  the  Royalists  were  actively  at 
work,  under  the  direction  of  leaders  at  home  in  com- 
munication with  Charles  abroad.  With  the  new  year 
their  hopes  began  to  fade.  The  division  common  to  all 
conspiracies  broke  out  between  the  bold  men  and  the 
prudent  men.  The  Royalist  council  in  England, 
known  as  the  Sealed  Knot,  told  the  king  in  February 


THE   MILITARY   DICTATORSHIP       383 

that  things  were  quite  unripe :  that  no  rising  in  the 
army  was  to  be  looked  for,  and  this  had  been  the  mani- 
stay  of  their  hopes ;  that  the  fleet  was  for  the  usurper ; 
that  insurrection  would  be  their  own  destruction,  and 
the  consolidation  of  their  foes.  The  fighting  section, 
on  the  other  hand,  were  equally  ready  to  charge  the 
Sealed  Knot  with  being  cold  and  backward.  They 
pressed  the  point  that  Cromwell  had  full  knowledge  of 
the  plot  and  of  the  men  engaged  in  it.  and  that  it 
would  be  harder  for  him  to  crush  them  now  than  later. 
Time  would  enable  him  to  compose  quarrels  in  his 
army,  as  he  had  so  often  composed  them  before.  In 
the  end  the  king  put  himself  in  the  hands  of  the  for- 
ward men.  the  conspiracy  was  pushed  on,  and  at  length 
in  March  the  smoldering  fire  broke  into  a  flickering 
and  feeble  flame.  This  is  not  the  only  time  that  an 
abortive  and  insignificant  rising  has  proved  to  be  the 
end  of  a  wide-spread  and  dangerous  combination.  In 
Ireland  we  have  not  seldom  seen  the  same,  just  as  in 
the  converse  way  formidable  risings  have  followed 
what  looked  like  insignificant  conspiracies. 

The  Yorkshire  Royalists  met  on  the  historic  ground 
of  Marston  Moor,  and  reckoned  on  surprising  York 
with  a  force  of  four  thousand  men ;  when  the  time 
came,  a  hundred  made  their  appearance,  and  in  despair 
they  flung  away  their  arms  and  dispersed.  In  North- 
umberland the  cavaliers  were  to  seize  Newcastle  and 
Tynemouth,  but  here,  too.  less  than  a  hundred  of  them 
ventured  to  the  field.  At  Rufford  in  Sherwood  Forest 
there  was  to  have  been  a  gathering  of  several  hundred, 
involving  gentlemen  of  consequence ;  but  on  the  ap- 
pointed day,  though  horses  and  arms  were  ready,  the 
country  would  not  stir.  At  midnight  the  handful 
cried  in  a  fright  that  they  were  betrayed,  and  made  off 
as  fast  as  they  could.     Designs  were  planned  in  Staf- 


384  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

fordshire,  Cheshire,  Shropshire,  but  they  came  to 
nothing,  and  not  a  blow  was  struck.  Every  county  in 
England,  said  Thurloe,  instead  of  rising  for  them 
would  have  risen  against  them.  The  Protector,  he 
declared,  if  there  had  been  any  need,  could  have  drawn 
into  the  field,  within  fourteen  days,  twenty  thousand 
men,  besides  the  standing  army.  "So  far  are  they 
mistaken  who  dream  that  the  affections  of  this  people 
are  toward  the  House  of  Stuart."  ^ 

The  only  momentary  semblance  of  success  was  what 
is  known  as  Penruddock's  rising  in  the  west.  A  band 
of  Wiltshire  Royalists  rode  into  Salisbury,  seized  in 
their  beds  the  judges  who  happened  to  be  on  circuit, 
and  the  wilder  blades  were  even  for  hanging  them. 
But  they  could  not  get  the  greasy  caps  flung  up  for 
King  Charles  in  Wilts,  nor  did  better  success  await 
them  in  Dorset  and  Somerset.  They  were  never  more 
than  four  hundred.  Even  these  numbers  soon  dwin- 
dled, and  within  three  or  four  days  a  Cromwellian 
captain  broke  in  upon  them  at  South  Molton,  took 
most  of  them  prisoners,  and  the  others  made  off.  Wag- 
staffe,  one  of  the  two  principals,  escaped  to  Holland, 
and  Penruddock,  the  other,  was  put  upon  his  trial  along 
with  a  number  of  his  confederates.  It  is  curious  that 
this  was  the  first  time  that  treason  against  the  govern- 
ment had  been  submitted  to  juries  since  1646,  and  the 
result  justified  the  confident  hopes  of  a  good  issue. 
Thirty-nine  offenders  were  condemned,  but  some  of 
them  Cromwell  reprieved — "his  course,"  says  Thurloe, 
"being  to  use  lenity  rather  than  severity."  Only  some 
fourteen  or  fifteen  suffered  death,  including  Pen- 
ruddock. 

In  the  army,   though  there  was  no  disaffection,  a 

1  March    i6,    1655.     See    Mr.  Firth's   examination   of  the 
rising  in  "  Englisli  Historical  Review,"   1888-89. 


THE   MILITARY   DICTATORSHIP       385 

mutinous  section  was  little  less  busy  than  the  Royalists. 
Harrison,  who  had  been  in  charge  of  King  Charles  on 
his  fatal  journey  from  Hurst  Castle  to  Windsor,  was 
now  himself  sent  a  prisoner  to  Carisbrooke.  Wildman, 
who  had  been  one  of  the  extremist  agitators  so  far 
back  as  1647,  was  arrested,  and  the  guard  found  him 
writing  a  "declaration  of  the  free  and  well-affected 
people  of  England  now  in  arms  against  the  tyrant 
Oliver  Cromwell,  Esquire."  It  is  no  irrational  docu- 
ment on  the  face  of  it,  being  little  more  than  a  re- 
statement of  the  aims  of  the  revolution  for  twelve 
years  past.  But  it  is  not  always  palatable  for  men  in 
power  to  be  confronted  with  their  aims  in  opposition. 
The  Protector  spared  no  money  in  acquiring  infor- 
mation. He  expended  immense  sums  in  secret  service, 
and  little  passed  in  the  Royalist  camp  abroad  that  was 
not  discovered  by  the  agents  of  Thurloe.  Cecil  and 
Walsingham  were  not  more  vigilant  or  more  success- 
ful in  their  watch  over  the  safety  of  Elizabeth  than 
was  CromwelTs  wise,  trusty,  and  unwearied  secretary 
of  state.  Plotters  were  so  amazed  how  the  Lord  Pro- 
tector came  to  hear  of  all  the  things  contrived  against 
him  that  they  fell  back  on  witchcraft  and  his  familiar- 
ity with  the  devil.  A  gentleman  got  leave  to  travel, 
and  had  an  interview  with  the  king  at  Cologne  one 
evening  after  dark.  On  his  return,  he  saw  the  Pro- 
tector, who  asked  him  if  he  had  kept  his  promise  not 
to  visit  Charles  Stuart.  The  gentleman  answered  that 
he  had.  But  who  was  it.  asked  Cromwell,  that  put 
out  the  candles  when  you  saw  Charles  Stuart?  He 
further  startled  the  traveler  by  asking  whether  Charles 
had  not  sent  a  letter  by  him.  The  gentleman  denied, 
Cromwell  took  his  hat,  found  a  letter  sewn  up  in  the 
lining  of  it,  and  sent  him  to  the  Tower.  Cromwell's 
informant  was  one  Manning,  and  this  transaction  was 
25 


386  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

his  ruin.  The  Royahsts  at  Cologne  suspected  him, 
his  rooms  were  searched,  his  ciphers  discovered,  and 
his  correspondence  read.  Manning  then  made  a  clean 
breast  of  it,  and  excused  his  treason  by  his  necessities, 
and  the  fact  that  he  was  to  have  twelve  hundred  pounds 
a  year  from  Cromwell  for  his  work.  His  only  chance 
of  life  was  a  threat  of  retaliation  by  Cromwell  on  some 
Royalist  in  prison  in  England,  but  this  was  not  forth- 
coming, and  Manning  was  shot  dead  by  two  gentlemen 
of  the  court  in  a  wood  near  Cologne. 

On  every  side  the  government  struck  vigorous 
blows.  Especial  watch  was  kept  upon  London.  Orders 
were  sent  to  the  ports  to  be  on  guard  against  surprise, 
and  to  stop  suspected  persons.  The  military  forces 
were  strengthened.  Gatherings  were  put  down. 
Many  arbitrary  arrests  were  made  among  minor  per- 
sons and  major;  and  many  were  sent  to  Barbadoes  to 
a  condition  of  qualified  slavery.  The  upright  and 
blameless  Overton  was  arbitrarily  flung  into  prison 
without  trial,  kept  there  for  three  years,  and  not  re- 
leased until  after  Cromwell's  death  and  the  revival  of 
Parliament.  When  that  day  arrived  both  Thurloe 
and  Barkstead,  the  governor  of  the  Tower,  quaked  for 
the  strong  things  that  they  had  done  on  the  personal 
authority  of  the  Protector.  The  stories  told  in  1659 
are  a  considerable  deduction  from  Burke's  praise  of  the 
admirable  administration  of  the  law  under  Cromwell. 
But  though  there  was  lawless  severity,  it  did  not  often 
approach  ferocity. 

Subterranean  plots  and  the  risings  of  hot-headed 
country  gentlemen  were  not  all  that  Cromwell  and  the 
council  had  to  encounter.  The  late  Parliament  had 
passed  no  effective  vote  of  money.  The  government 
fell  back  upon  its  power  of  raising  taxes  by  ordinance. 
The  validity  of  the  ordinance  was  disputed ;  the  judges 


THE   MILITARY   DICTATORSHIP       387 

inclined  to  hold  the  objections  good;  and  it  looked  for 
a  moment  as  if  a  general  refusal  to  pay  customs  and 
excise  might  bring  the  whole  financial  fabric  to  the 
ground.  The  three  counsel  for  Cony,  the  merchant 
who  had  declined  to  pay  the  customs  dues,  were  sum- 
moned before  the  Protector  and  the  Council  of  State. 
After  hearing  what  they  had  to  say,  Oliver  signed  a 
warrant  for  their  committal  to  the  Tower  for  using 
words  tending  to  sedition  and  subversive  of  the  gov- 
ernment. Violation  of  the  spirit  and  letter  of  the  law 
could  go  no  further.  They  were  soon  set  free,  and 
Cromwell  bore  them  no  malice,  but  the  people  not  un- 
reasonably saw  in  the  proceeding  a  strong  resemblance 
to  the  old  Star  Chamber.  The  judges  were  sent  for, 
and  humbly  said  something  about  Magna  Charta. 
The  Protector  scoffed  at  Magna  Charta  with  a  mock 
too  coarse  for  modern  manners,  declared  that  it  should 
not  control  actions  which  he  knew  to  be  required  by 
public  safety,  reminded  them  that  it  was  he  who  made 
them  judges,  and  bade  them  no  more  to  suffer  the 
lawyers  to  prate  what  it  would  not  become  them  to 
hear.  The  judges  may  have  been  wrong  either  in  their 
construction  of  the  Instrument,  or  in  their  view  that  a 
section  of  the  Instrument  did  not  make  a  good  law. 
But  the  committal  of  three  counsel  to  prison  by  the 
executive,  because  their  arguments  were  too  good  to  be 
convenient,  was  certainly  not  good  law  whatever  else 
it  was.  Judges  who  proved  not  complaisant  enough 
were  displaced.  Sir  Peter  Wentworth,  who  had  tried 
to  brave  Cromwell  at  the  breaking  up  of  the  Long  Par- 
liament, tried  to  brave  him  now  by  bringing  a  suit 
against  the  tax  collector.  The  Protector  haled  him 
before  the  council ;  Wentworth  said  that  he  had  been 
moved  by  his  constant  principle  that  no  money  could 
be  levied  but  by  consent  of   Parliament.     Cromwell 


388  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

commanded  him  to  drop  his  suit,  and  \\'entworth 
submitted. 

The  Protector  never  shrank  in  these  days  from 
putting  his  defense  in  all  its  breadth.  "If  nothing 
should  be  done,"  he  said  with  scorn,  "but  what  is  ac- 
cording to  law,  the  throat  of  the  nation  might  be  cut 
while  we  send  for  some  one  to  make  a  law.  It  is  a 
pitiful  notion  to  think,  though  it  be  for  ordinary  gov- 
ernment to  live  by  law  and  rule — yet  if  a  government 
in  extraordinary  circumstances  go  beyond  the  law,  it 
is  to  be  clamored  at  and  blottered  at."  Sometimes  he 
was  not  afraid  to  state  the  tyrant's  plea  even  more 
broadly  still.  "The  ground  of  Necessity  for  justify- 
ing of  men's  actions  is  above  all  considerations  of  in- 
stituted law,  and  if  this  or  any  other  State  should  go 
about  to  make  laws  against  events,  against  what  may 
happen,  then  I  think  it  is  obvious  to  any  man  they  will 
be  making  laws  against  Providence ;  events  and  issues 
of  things  being  from  God  alone,  to  whom  all  issues 
belong."  As  if  all  law  were  not  in  its  essence  a  device 
against  contingent  cases.  Nevertheless  these  pious 
disguises  of  what  was  really  no  more  than  common 
reason  of  state,  just  as  reason  of  state  is  always  used 
whether  by  bad  men  or  by  good,  do  not  affect  the  fact 
that  Cromwell  in  his  heart  knew  the  value  of  legality 
as  well  as  anybody  that  ever  held  rule,  only  he  was  the 
least  fortunate  of  men  in  affecting  his  aim. 

"It  was  now,"  says  Oliver,  "we  did  find  out  a  little 
poor  invention,  which  I  hear  has  been  much  regretted ; 
I  say  there  was  a  little  thing  invented,  which  was  the 
erection  of  your  major-generals."  This  device  had  all 
the  virtues  of  military  simplicity.  In  the  summer  and 
autumn  of  1655  England  and  Wales  were  mapped  out 
into  a  dozen  districts.  Over  each  district  was  planted 
a   major-general,    Lambert,    Desborough,    Fleetwood, 


From  the  portrait  at  Chequers  Court,  by  permission  of  Mrs.  Frankland-Russell-Astley. 
JOHN'    THIRLOE,  SECRETARY    TO   OLIVER    CROMWELL. 


THE   MILITARY   DICTATORSHIP       389 

Skippon,  \\'halley.  Barkstead,  Goffe,  and  the  rest,  all 
picked  veterans  and  the  trustiest  of  them.  Their  first 
duties  were  those  of  high  pohce,  to  put  down  unlawful 
assemblies  by  force ;  to  disarm  Papists  and  persons 
dangerous  to  the  peace  of  the  nation;  to  exact  a  bond 
from  any  householder  considered  to  be  disaffected 
for  the  good  behavior  of  his  servants,  and  the  servants 
were  to  appear  before  the  major-general  or  his  deputy 
wherever  and  whenever  called  upon.  Persons  in  this 
category  were  to  be  registered,  and  if  they  changed 
their  abode,  the  major-general  was  to  be  informed. 
Anybody  coming  from  beyond  the  sea  was  to  report 
himself,  and  his  later  movements  were  to  be  followed 
and  recorded.  The  major-general  was  further  to  keep 
a  sharp  eye  upon  scandalous  ministers,  and  to  see  that 
no  disaffected  person  should  take  any  share  in  the  edu- 
cation of  youth. 

All  this,  however,  was  the  least  material  part  of  the 
new  policy.  The  case  for  the  change  rested  on  the 
danger  of  more  daring  plots  and  more  important  ris- 
ings, the  inadequateness  of  local  justices  and  parish 
constables,  the  need  of  the  central  government  for 
hands  and  eyes  of  its  own,  finally  on  the  shadows  of 
division  in  the  army.  There  were  those  in  the  late 
Parliament  who  thought  the  peril  inconsiderable,  but 
Thurloe  tells  us  that,  "his  Highness  saw  a  necessity 
of  raising  more  force,  and  in  every  county,  unless  he 
would  give  up  his  cause  to  the  enemy."  This  involved 
a  new  standing  militia  for  all  the  counties  of  England, 
and  that  again  in^'olved  a  new  money  charge.  "What 
so  just  as  to  put  the  charge  upon  those  whose  disaffec- 
tion was  the  cause  of  it?"  Such  a  plan  needed  no  more 
than  the  "decimation"  of  those  against  whom,  after 
personal  inquisition  made,  they  chose  to  set  the  mark  of 
delinquency  or  disaffection.     From  such  persons  they 


390  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

were  instructed  to  exact  one  tenth  of  their  annual  in- 
come. For  these  exactions  there  was  no  pretense  of 
law ;  nor  could  they  be  brought  into  the  courts,  the  only 
appeal  being  to  the  Protector  in  Council.  The  Parlia- 
ment had  been  dissolved  for  meddling  with  the  Instru- 
ment of  Government.  Yet  all  this  was  contrary  to  the 
Instrument.  The  scheme  took  some  time  to  complete, 
but  by  the  last  three  months  of  1655  it  was  in  full 
operation. 

Two  other  remarkable  measures  of  repression  be- 
long to  this  stern  epoch.  An  edict  was  passed  for 
securing  the  peace  of  the  Commonwealth  (November. 
1655),  ordering  that  no  ejected  clergyman  should  be 
kept  in  any  gentleman's  house  as  chaplain  or  tutor,  or 
teach  in  a  school,  or  baptize,  or  celebrate  marriages,  or 
use  the  Prayer  Book.  That  this  was  a  superfluity  of 
rigor  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  it  was  never  executed. 
It  is  probable  that  other  measures  of  the  time  went 
equally  beyond  the  real  necessities  of  the  crisis,  for  ex- 
perience shows  that  nothing  is  ever  so  certain  to  be 
overdone  as  the  policy  of  military  repression  against 
civil  disaffection.  The  second  measure  was  still  more 
significant  of  the  extent  to  which  despotic  reaction  was 
going  in  the  methods  of  the  government.  Orders  were 
issued  that  no  person  whatever  do  presume  to  publish 
in  print  any  matter  of  public  news  or  intelligence  with- 
out leave  of  the  secretary  of  state.  The  result  of  this 
was  to  reduce  the  newspaper  press  in  the  capital  of  the 
country  to  a  single  journal  coming  out  twice  a  week 
under  two  different  names.  Milton  was  still  Latin 
secretary,  and  it  was  only  eleven  years  since  the  ap- 
pearance of  his  immortal  plea  for  unlicensed  printing. 

"Our  ministers  are  bad,"  one  of  the  major-generals 
reports  in  1655,  "our  magistrates  idle,  and  the  people 
all    asleep."     The    new    authorities    set    resolutely    to 


THE   MILITARY   DICTATORSHIP       391 

work.  They  appointed  commissioners  to  assess  the 
decimation  of  dehnquents,  not  however  without  con- 
stant reference  to  the  Protector  and  Council  for  direc- 
tions how  individuals  were  to  be  dealt  with.  The 
business  of  taxing  the  Cavaliers  in  this  high  manner 
was  "of  wonderful  acceptation  to  all  the  Parliament 
party,  and  men  of  all  opinions  joined  heartily  therein." 
That  men  of  one  opinion  should  heartily  rejoice  at  the 
compulsory  exaction  of  rates  and  taxes  from  men  of 
another  opinion,  is  in  accord  with  human  nature :  not 
that  the  activity  of  the  major-generals  prevented  the 
imposition  of  a  general  property  tax  in  1656.  The 
Cavaliers  submitted  with  little  ado.  Wider  irritation 
was  created  by  stringent  interference  with  ale  houses, 
bear-baiting,  and  cock-fighting.  Lord  Exeter  came  to 
ask  Whalley  whether  he  would  allow  the  Lady  Grant- 
ham cup  to  be  run  for  at  Lincoln,  for  if  so  he  would 
start  a  horse.  'T  assured  him,"  reports  Whalley  to 
the  Protector,  "that  it  was  not  your  Highness'  inten- 
tion in  the  suppression  of  horse-races,  to  abridge  gen- 
tlemen of  that  sport,  but  to  prevent  the  great  conflu- 
ences of  irreconcilable  enemies" ;  and  Exeter  had  his 
race.  Profane  and  idle  gentry  whose  li\es  were  a 
shame  to  a  Christian  commonwealth  were  hunted  out, 
and  the  government  were  adjured  to  banish  them. 
"We  have  imprisoned  here,"  writes  the  choleric  major- 
general  in  Shropshire,  "divers  lewd  fellows,  some  for 
having  a  hand  in  the  plot,  others  of  dissolute  life,  as 
persons  dangerous  to  the  peace  of  the  nation  :  amongst 
others  those  papists  who  went  a-hunting  when  they 
were  sent  for  by  Major  Waring;  they  are  desperate 
persons,  and  divers  of  them  fit  to  grind  sugar-cane  or 
plant  tobacco,  and  if  some  of  them  were  sent  into  the 
Indies,  it  would  do  much  good."  One  personage  when 
reprimanded  warned  the  major-general  that  if  he  were 


392  OLR'ER   CRO.MWELL 

sent  to  prison  it  would  cause  the  godly  to  pour  forth 
prayers  and  tears  before  the  Lord.  The  staunch  officer 
replied  that  thousands  of  men  in  tears  would  never  dis- 
quiet him,  if  he  knew  that  he  was  doing  his  duty  in  the 
way  of  Providence. 

The  only  defense  of  reason  of  state  is  success,  and 
here  the  result  soon  proved  to  be  not  success  but  failure. 
While  so  man}-  individuals  and  orders  were  exasper- 
ated, no  great  class  of  society  was  reconciled.  Rigid 
order  was  kept,  plotters  were  cowed,  money  was 
squeezed,  but  the  keenest  discontent  was  quickened  in 
all  those  various  organized  bodies  of  men  with  lively 
minds  and  energetic  interests,  by  whom  in  the  long 
run  effective  public  opinion  in  every  community  is  gen- 
erated. Oliver  must  soon  have  seen  that  his  change  of 
system  would  cut  up  his  policy  of  healing  and  con- 
ciliation bv  its  roots. 


CHAPTER   IV 


THE    REACTION 


^T/'AXT  of  money  has  ever  been  the  wholesome 
>  V  check  on  kings,  on  ParHaments.  and  cabinets, 
and  now  in  his  turn  it  pinched  the  Protector.  In  spite 
of  the  decimation  screw,  the  militia  often  went  short 
of  their  pay,  and  suffered  both  trouble  and  jeers  in 
consequence.  Apart  from  the  cost  of  domestic  ad- 
ministration, Cromwell  had  embarked,  as  we  shall  see, 
on  a  course  of  intervention  abroad ;  and  he  was  soon  in 
the  same  straits  as  those  against  which  Strafford  had 
long  ago  warned  his  master,  as  the  sure  result  of  a 
foreign  policy  to  be  paid  for  by  discontented  subjects. 
In  June,  1656,  the  Protector  held  a  conference  with 
his  council  and  some  of  the  principal  officers  of  the 
army.  There  were  those  who  advised  him  to  raise 
money  on  his  own  direct  authority  by  forced  loans  or 
general  taxation.  There  is  reason  to  suppose  that 
Cromwell  himself  leaned  this  way,  for  before  long  he 
chid  the  officers  for  urging  the  other  course.  The  de- 
cision, however,  was  taken  to  call  a  new  Parliament. 

The  election  that  went  forward  during  the  summer 
of  1656  had  all  the  rough  animation  of  the  age  and 
well  deserves  consideration.  Thurloe  writes  to  Henry 
Cromwell  that  there  is  the  greatest  striving  to  get  into 
Parliament  that  ever  was  known ;  every  faction  is  be- 
stirring itself  with  all  its  might ;  and  all  sorts  of  dis- 

393 


394  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

contented  people  are  incessant  in  their  endeavors.  The 
major-generals  on  their  side  were  active  in  electioneer- 
ing arts,  and  their  firmly  expressed  resignation  to  the 
will  of  over-ruling  Providence  did  not  hinder  the  most 
alert  wire-pulling.  They  pressed  candidates  of  the 
right  color,  and  gave  broad  hints  as  to  any  who  were 
not  sober  and  suitable  to  the  present  work.  Every 
single  major-general  was  himself  a  candidate  and  was 
elected.  At  Dover  the  rabble  were  strong  for  Cony, 
who  had  fought  the  case  of  the  customs  dues,  and  the 
major-general  thinks  he  was  likely  to  be  elected  unless 
he  could  be  judiciously  "secluded."  At  Preston,  once 
the  scene  of  perhaps  the  most  critical  of  all  Cromwell's 
victories,  the  major-general  expected  much  thwarting, 
through  the  peevishness  of  friends  and  the  disaffection 
of  enemies.  In  Norwich  an  opposition  preacher  of 
great  popularity  was  forbidden  to  go  into  the  pulpit. 
A  sharp  eye  was  kept  upon  all  printed  matter  finding 
its  way  through  the  post.  Whalley  reports  that  the 
heart  is  sound  in  what  he  calls  the  mediterranean  part 
of  the  nation ;  people  know  that  money  will  be  wanted 
by  the  government,  but  they  will  not  grudge  it  as  the 
price  of  a  settlement.  At  the  same  time  he  is  unhappy 
lest  Colonel  Hutchinson  or  Sir  Arthur  Hazelrig 
should  get  in,  just  as  his  superiors  dreaded  the  return 
of  Sergeant  Bradshaw  and  Sir  Henry  Vane.  Des- 
borough  is  uneasy  about  the  west,  but  he  makes  it  his 
business  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  honest  sober 
people,  leaving  the  issue  to  the  wise  Disposer. 

Norfolk  was  one  of  the  most  alarming  cases.  "If 
other  counties  should  do  as  this,"  says  the  major-gen- 
eral, "it  would  be  a  sufficient  alarum  to  stand  upon  our 
guard,  the  spirit  of  the  people  being  most  strangely 
heightened  and  molded  into  a  very  great  aptness  to 
take  the  first  hint  for  an  insurrection,  and  the  county 
especially  so  disposed  may  most  probably  begin  the 


THE   REACTION  395 

scene."  He  suggests  that  preparations  for  calling  out 
the  militia  would  be  a  sensible  encouragement  for 
the  friends  of  the  government.  At  Ipswich,  when  the 
writ  was  read,  somebody  rose  and  complained  of  the 
reference  to  his  Highness'  Parliament;  the  king  had 
never  called  it  his  Parliament ;  and  such  an  innovation 
should  be  a  warning  not  to  vote  for  swordmen  nor  for 
the  Protector's  friends;  thereupon  another  called  out 
that  they  were  all  his  friends.  One  opposition  can- 
didate assured  his  audience  that  his  Highness  had  sent 
for  three  thousand  Swiss  to  be  his  body-guard ;  that 
he  had  secretly  sold  the  trade  of  England  to  the  Dutch, 
and  would  grant  no  convoy  from  Holland ;  that  most 
of  the  counties  in  England  would  bring  up  their  num- 
bers in  thousands,  in  spite  of  Oliver  and  his  redcoats ; 
and  that  he  would  wager  his  life  that  not  five  hundred 
in  the  whole  army  wouM  resist  them.  Another  cry 
was  that  the  free  people  of  England  would  have  no 
more  swordmen,  no  more  decimators.  nor  anybody  in 
receipt  of  a  salary  from  the  State. 

"On  Monday  last,"  writes  Goffe,  "I  spoke  with  Mr. 
Cole  of  Southampton,  whom  I  find  to  be  a  perfect 
Leveler — he  is  called  by  the  name  of  Common  Free- 
dom. He  told  me  he  was  where  he  was,  and  where  the 
army  was  seven  years  ago,  and  pulled  out  of  his  pocket 
the  'Agreement  of  the  People.'  He  told  me  he  would 
promise  me  not  to  disperse  any  of  those  books,  and  that 
it  was  his  intention  to  live  peaceable,  for  that  he  knew 
a  w^r  was  not  so  easily  ended  as  begun.  Whereupon, 
with  the  best  exhortation  I  could  give  him,  I  dismissed 
him  for  the  present.  .  .  .  Mr.  Cole  is  very  angry 
at  the  Spanish  war,  and  saith  we  deal  most  ungrate- 
fully with  them,  for  that  they  were  so  civil  to  us  in 
the  time  of  our  late  difference,  and  that  all  our  trade 
will  be  lost." 

An   energetic   manifesto   was   put   out   against   the 


396  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

government,  stating  with  unusual  force  the  reasons 
why  dear  Christian  friends  and  brethren  should  bestir 
themselves  in  a  day  of  trouble,  rebuke,  and  blasphemy ; 
why  they  should  make  a  stand  for  the  pure  principles 
of  free-born  Englishmen  against  the  power  and  pomp 
of  any  man,  however  high  he  might  bear  himself. 
Half  the  books  in  the  Old  Testament  are  made  to 
supply  examples  and  warnings,  and  Hezekiah  and 
Sennacherib,  Jethro  and  Moses,  Esther,  Uzzah,  Absa- 
lom, are  all  turned  into  lessons  of  what  a  voter  should 
do  or  abstain  from  doing.  The  whole  piece  gives  an  in- 
structive glimpse  of  the  state  of  mind  of  the  generation. 
Earnest  remonstrances  are  addressed  to  those  who 
think  that  God  has  gone  out  of  Parliaments,  and  that 
the  time  for  Christ's  kingdom  is  come.  Others  hold 
that  the  Protector  had  at  least  given  them  liberty  of 
conscience  in  worshiping  God,  a  thing  worth  all  else 
put  together,  and  a  thing  that  Parliament  might  very 
likely  take  away.  Some  again  insist  that  elections  are 
of  no  purpose,  because  the  Protector  with  his  redcoats 
will  very  soon  either  make  members  do  what  he  wants, 
or  else  pack  them  off  home  again.  All  these  partizans 
of  abstention — the  despair  of  party  managers  in  every 
age — are  faithfully  dealt  with,  and  the  manifesto  closes 
with  the  hackneyed  asseverations  of  all  oppositions,  an- 
cient and  modern,  that  if  only  the  right  sort  of  Parlia- 
ment were  returned  burdens  would  be  eased,  trade 
would  revive,  and  the  honor  of  the  country  now  lying 
in  the  dust  among  all  nations  would  be  immediately 
restored.  Did  not  their  imprisoned  friends  speak? 
Did  not  their  banished  neighbors  speak  ?  Did  not  their 
infringed  rights  speak?  Did  not  their  invaded  prop- 
erties speak?  Did  not  their  affronted  representatives 
who  had  been  trodden  upon  with  scorn,  speak?  Did 
not  the  blood  of  many  thousands  speak,  some  slain 


THE   REACTION  397 

with  the  sword,  others  killed  with  hunger;  witness 
Jamaica?  Did  not  the  cries  of  their  honest  seamen 
speak,  the  wall  and  bulwark  of  our  nation,  and  now  so 
barbarously  forced  from  wives  and  children  to  serve 
the  ambitions  and  fruitless  designs  of  one  man  ? 

By  way  of  antidote  the  major-generals  were  armed 
with  letters  from  the  Protector  and  instructions  from 
Thurloe,  and  any  one  found  in  possession  of  a  bundle 
of  the  seditious  documents  was  quickly  called  to  sharp 
account.  Earlier  in  the  summer  Sir  Henry  Vane  had 
put  out  a  pamphlet  without  his  name,  which  at  first  was 
popular,  and  then  on  second  thoughts  was  found  im- 
practicable, because  it  simply  aimed  at  the  restoration 
of  the  Long  Parliament.  '  Vane  was  haled  before  the 
Coimcil  (August  21),  where  he  admitted  the  writing 
and  publishing  of  the  "Healing  Question,"  though  in 
dark  and  mysterious  terms,  as  his  manner  was.  He 
was  ordered  to  give  security,  refused,  and  was  sent  to 
prison  at  Carisbrooke,  where  he  lay  until  the  end  of  the 
year.  An  attempt  was  made  to  punish  Bradshaw  by 
removing  him  from  his  office  of  Chief- Justice  of  Chesh- 
ire, but  the  council  changed  their  mind.  The  well- 
directed  activity  of  the  major-general  was  enough  to 
prevent  Bradshaw's  return  for  that  county,  and  he 
failed  elsewhere.  So  the  Protector  was  free  of  those 
who  passed  for  the  two  leading  incendiaries. 

The  Parliament  met  in  September,  1656.  and  Oliver 
adddressed  it  in  one  of  his  most  characteristic  speeches. 
He  appealed  at  great  length  to  the  hatred  of  Spain,  on 
the  standing  ground  of  its  bondage  to  the  Pope:  for 
its  evil  doings  upon  Englishmen  in  the  West  Indies, 
for  its  espousal  of  the  Stuart  interest.  Then  he 
turned  to  the  unholy  friendliness  at  home  between 
Papists,  all  of  them  "Spaniolized,"  and  Cavaliers:  be- 
tween some  of  the  Republicans  and  Royalists :  between 


398  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

some  of  the  Commonwealth  men  and  some  of  the  mire 
and  dirt  thrown  up  by  the  revolutionary  waters.  He 
recalled  all  the  plots  and  the  risings  and  attempted 
risings,  and  warned  them  against  the  indolent  suppo- 
sition that  such  things  were  no  more  than  the  nibbling 
of  a  mouse  at  one's  heel.  For  the  major-generals  and 
their  decimation  of  Royalist  delinquents,  he  set  up  a 
stout  defense.  Why  was  it  not  righteous  to  make  that 
party  pay  for  the  suppression  of  disorder  which  had 
made  the  charge  necessary?  Apart  from  the  mere 
preservation  of  the  peace,  was  it  not  true  that  the 
major-generals  had  been  more  effectual  for  dis- 
countenancing vice  and  settling  religion  than  anything 
done  these  fifty  years?  The  mark  of  the  cavalier  in- 
terest was  profaneness,  disorder,  and  wickedness ;  the 
profane  nobility  and  gentry,  that  was  the  interest  that 
his  officers  had  been  engaged  against.  "If  it  lives  in 
us,  I  say,  if  it  be  in  the  general  heart,  it  is  a  thing  I 
am  confident  our  liberty  and  prosperity  depend  upon — 
reformation  of  manners.  By  this  you  will  be  more 
repairer  of  breaches  than  by  anything  in  the  world. 
Truly  these  things  do  respect  the  souls  of  men  and  the 
spirits — zvhich  arc  the  men.  The  mind  is  the  man. 
If  that  be  kept  pure,  a  man  signifies  somewhat;  if  not, 
I  would  very  fain  see  what  difference  there  is  between 
him  and  a  beast." 

In  the  mighty  task  that  was  laid  upon  them,  it  was 
no  neutral  or  Laodicean  spirit  that  would  do.  With 
the  instinct  of  a  moral  leader,  with  something  more 
than  trick  of  debate  or  a  turn  of  tactics,  Cromwell  told 
them :  "Doubting,  hesitating  men,  they  are  not  fit  for 
your  work.  You  must  not  expect  that  men  of  hesi- 
tating* spirits,  under  the  bondage  of  scruples,  will  be 
able  to  carry  on  this  work.  Do  not  think  that  men  of 
this  sort  will  ever  rise  to  such  a  spiritual  heat  for  the 


THE   REACTION  399 

nation  as  shall  carry  you  a  cause  like  this ;  ac  will  meet 
all  the  oppositions  that  the  devil  and  wicked  men  can 
make."  Then  he  winds  up  with  three  high  passages 
from  the  Psalms,  with  no  particular  bearing  on  their 
session,  but  in  those  days  well  fitted  to  exalt  men's 
hearts,  and  surrounding  the  temporal  anxieties  of  the 
hour  with  radiant  visions  from  another  sphere  for  the 
diviner  mind. 

Of  the  real  cause  of  their  assembling,  deficit,  and 
debts,  the  Protector  judiciously  said  little.  As  he  ob- 
served of  himself  on  another  occasion — and  the  double 
admission  deserves  to  be  carefully  marked — he  was  not 
much  better  skilled  in  arithmetic  than  he  was  in  law, 
and  his  statement  of  accounts  would  certainly  not 
satisfy  the  standards  of  a  modern  exchequer.  In- 
capacity of  legal  apprehension,  and  incapacity  in 
finance,  are  a  terrible  drawback  in  a  statesman  with  a 
new  state  to  build.  Before  business  began,  the  Pro- 
tector took  precautions  after  his  own  fashion  against 
the  opposition  critics.  He  and  the  council  had  already 
pondered  the  list  of  members  returned  to  the  Parlia- 
ment, and  as  the  government  made  their  way  from  the 
Painted  Chamber  to  their  House,  soldiers  were  found 
guarding  the  door.  There  was  no  attempt  to  hide  the 
iron  hand  in  velvet  glove.  The  clerk  of  the  Common- 
wealth was  planted  in  the  lobby  with  certificates  of  the 
approval  of  the  Council  of  State.  Nearly  a  hundred 
found  no  such  tickets,  and  for  them  there  was  no  ad- 
mission. This  strong  act  of  purification  was  legal 
under  the  Instrument,  and  the  House  when  it  was  re- 
ported, was  content  with  making  an  order  that  the  per- 
sons shut  out  should  apply  to  the  council  for  its  appro- 
bation. The  excluded  members,  of  whose  fidelity  to 
his  government  Cromwell  could  not  be  sure,  comprised 
a  faithful  remnant  of  the  Long  Parliament;  and  they 


400  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

and  others,  ninety-three  in  number,  signed  a  remon- 
strance in  terms  that  are  a  strident  echo  of  the  protests 
which  had  so  often  been  launched  in  old  days  against 
the  king.  Vehemently  they  denounced  the  practise 
of  the  tyrant  to  use  the  name  of  God  and  religion  and 
formal  fasts  and  prayer  to  color  the  blackness  of  the 
fact;  and  to  command  one  hundred,  two  hundred,  or 
three  hundred  to  depart,  and  to  call  the  rest  a  Parlia- 
ment by  way  of  countenancing  his  oppression.  The 
present  assembly  at  Westminster,  they  protested,  sits 
under  the  daily  awe  and  terror  of  the  Lord  Protector's 
armed  men.  not  daring  to  consult  or  debate  freely  the 
great  concernments  of  their  country,  nor  daring  to 
oppose  his  usurpation  and  oppression,  and  no  such 
assembly  can  be  the  representative  body  of  England. 
We  may  be  sure  that  if  such  was  the  temper  of  nearly 
one  fourth  of  a  Parliament  that  was  itself  just — 
chosen  under  close  restrictions — this  remonstrance 
gives  a  striking  indication  how  little  way  had  even  yet 
been  made  by  Cromwell  in  converting  popular  opinion 
to  his  support. 


CHAPTER  V 


A    CHANGE    OF    TACK 


THE  Parliament  speedily  showed  signs  that,  win- 
nowed and  sifted  as  it  had  been,  and  loyally  as  it 
ahvays  meant  to  stand  to  the  person  of  the  Protector, 
yet  like  the  Rump,  like  the  Barebones'  Convention, 
and  like  the  first  Parliament  under  the  Instrument, 
all  of  them,  one  after  another,  banished  in  disgrace,  it 
was  resolved  not  to  be  a  cipher  in  the  constitution,  but 
was  full  of  that  spirit  of  corporate  self-esteem  without 
which  any  Parliament  is  a  body  void  of  soul.  The 
elections  had  taught  them  that  the  rule  of  the  sword- 
men  and  the  decimators  was  odious  even  to  the  honest 
party  in  the  country.  Oliver  anxiously  watching  the 
signs  of  public  feeling  had  probably  learned  the  same 
lesson,  that  his  major-generals  were  a  source  of  weak- 
ness and  not  of  strength  to  his  government.  The 
hour  had  come  when  the  long  struggle  between  army 
and  Parliament  which  in  various  forms  had  covered 
nine  troubled  years,  was  to  enter  a  fresh  and  closing 
phase.  The  nation,  whether  Royalist  or  Puritan,  had 
shown  itself  as  a  whole  bitterly  averse  to  the  trans- 
formation of  the  ancient  realm  of  England  into  a  mili- 
tary state,  and  with  this  aversion,  even  from  the  early 
days  of  barrack  debates  at  Windsor  and  Putney.  Oliver 
was  in  perfect  sympathy.  Neither  the  habitudes  of  the 
camp,  nor  the  fact  that  his  own  power  which  he  rightly 
^^  401 


402  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

identified  with  public  order,  had  always  depended  and 
must  still  depend  upon  the  army,  dulled  his  instinct  or 
weakened  his  desire  that  the  three  kingdoms  should  be 
welded,  not  into  a  soldier  state,  but  into  a  civil  con- 
stitution solidly  reposing  on  its  acceptance  by  the  na- 
tion. We  cannot  confidently  divine  the  workings  of 
that  capacious,  slow,  and  subtle  mind,  but  this  quick- 
ened perception  seems  to  be  the  key  to  the  dramatic 
episode  that  was  now  approaching. 

The  opportunity  for  disclosing  the  resolve  of  the 
Parliament  to  try  a  fall  with  the  military  power  soon 
came.  It  was  preceded  by  an  incident  that  revealed 
one  of  the  dangers,  so  well  known  to  Oliver,  and 
viewed  by  him  with  such  sincere  alarm  as  attending 
any  kind  of  free  Parliament  whether  this  or  another. 
The  general  objects  of  the  new  Parliament  of  1656, 
like  the  objects  of  its  immediate  predecessor  of  1654, 
were  to  widen  the  powers  of  Parliament,  to  limit  those 
of  the  Protector,  to  curb  the  soldiers,  and  finally,  al- 
though this  was  kept  in  discreet  shade,  to  narrow  the 
area  of  religious  tolerance.  A  test  of  tolerance  oc- 
curred almost  at  once.  Excesses  of  religious  emotion 
were  always  a  sore  point  with  Protestant  reformers, 
for  all  such  excesses  seemed  a  warrant  for  the  bitter 
predictions  of  the  Catholics  at  the  Reformation,  that 
to  break  with  the  church  was  to  open  the  flood-gates  of 
extravagance  and  blasphemy  in  the  heart  of  unregen- 
erate  man.  Hence  nobody  was  so  infuriated  as  the 
partisan  of  private  judgment  with  those  who  carried 
private  judgment  beyond  a  permitted  point. 

James  Nayler  was  an  extreme  example  of  the 
mystics  whom  the  hard  children  of  this  world  dismiss 
as  crazy  fanatics.  For  several  years  he  had  fought 
with  good  repute  in  the  Parliamentary  army,  and  he 
was  present  on  the  memorable  day  of  Dunbar.     Then 


A    CHANGE    OF    TACK  403 

he  joined  George  Fox,  by-and-by  carried  Quaker  prin- 
ciples to  a  higher  pitch,  and  in  time  gave  to  his  faith  a 
personal  turn  by  allowing  enthusiastic  disciples  to 
salute  him  as  the  Messiah.  In  October,  1656,  he  rode 
into  Bristol,  attended  by  a  crowd  of  frantic  devotees, 
some  of  them  casting  branches  on  the  road,  all  chant- 
ing loud  hosannas,  several  even  vowing  that  he  had 
miraculously  raised  them  from  the  dead.  For  his 
share  in  these  transactions  Nayler  was  brought  before 
a  committee  of  Parliament.  No  sworn  evidence  was 
taken.  Nobody  proved  that  he  had  spoken  a  word. 
The  worst  that  could  be  alleged  was  that  he  had  taken 
part  in  a  hideous  parody.  The  House  found  that  he 
was  guilty  of  blasphemy,  that  he  was  a  grand  impostor, 
and  a  seducer  of  the  people.  It  was  actually  proposed 
to  inflict  the  capital  sentence,  and  the  offender  only  es- 
caped death  by  a  majority  of  fourteen,  in  a  division  of 
a  hundred  and  seventy-eight  members.  The  debate 
lasted  over  many  days.  The  sentence  finally  imposed 
was  this :  To  stand  in  the  pillory  two  hours  at  West- 
minster; to  be  whipped  by  the  hangman  from  West- 
minster to  the  old  Exchange,  and  there  to  undergo 
another  two  hours'  pillory;  to  have  his  tongue  bored 
through  with  a  hot  iron;  to  be  branded  on  the  brow 
with  the  letter  B ;  then  to  be  sent  to  Bristol,  carried  on 
a  horse  barebacked  with  his  face  to  the  tail,  and  there 
again  whipped  in  the  market-place ;  thence  to  be 
brought  back  to  London,  to  be  put  into  solitary  confine- 
ment with  hard  labor  during  the  pleasure  of  Parlia- 
ment, without  use  of  pen,  ink,  or  paper.  So  hideous 
a  thing  could  Puritanism  be,  so  little  was  there  in 
many  things  to  choose  between  the  spirit  of  Laud  and 
the  hard  hearts  of  the  people  who  cut  off  Laud's  head. 
Cromwell  showed  his  noblest  quality.  The  year  be- 
fore he  had  interposed  by  executive  act  to  remove  John 


404  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

Biddle,  charged  with  Socinian  heresy,  from  the  grasp 
of  the  courts.  Cromwell  denounced  the  blasphemy  of 
denying-  the  godhead  of  Jesus  Christ,  but  he  secluded 
Biddle  from  harm  by  sending  him  to  Scilly  with  an 
allowance  of  ten  shillings  a  week  and  a  supply  of  books. 
So  now  in  Nayler's  case  he  hated  the  cruelty,  and  he 
saw  the  mischief  of  the  assumption  by  Parliament  of  the 
function  of  a  court  of  law.  The  most  ardent  friends 
of  Parliament  must  still  read  with  a  lively  thrill  the 
words  that  Oliver  now  addressed  to  the  Speaker : 
"Having  taken  notice  of  a  judgment  lately  given  by 
yourselves  against  one  James  Nayler;  although  we 
detest  and  abhor  the  giving  or  occasioning  the  least 
countenance  to  persons  of  such  opinions  and  practice. 
.  .  .  Yet  we.  being  interested  in  the  present  gov- 
ernment on  behalf  of  the  people  of  these  nations ;  and 
not  knowing  how  far  such  proceeding,  entered  into 
wholly  without  us,  may  extend  in  the  consequence  of 
it — Do  desire  that  the  House  will  let  us  know  the 
grounds  and  reasons  whereupon  they  have  proceeded." 
(December  12,  1656.)  This  rebuke  notwithstanding, 
the  execrable  sentence  was  carried  out  to  the  letter. 
It  galled  Cromwell  to  find  that  under  the  Instrument 
he  had  no  power  to  interfere  with  the  Parliamentary 
assumption  of  judicial  attributes,  and  this  became  an 
additional  reason  for  that  grand  constitutional  revision 
which  was  now  coming  into  sight. 

A  few  days  after  the  disposal  of  Nayler  a  bill  was 
brought  in  that  raised  the  great  question  of  the  major- 
generals,  their  arbitrary  power,  and  their  unlawful 
decimations.  By  the  new  bill  the  system  was  to  be 
continued.  The  lawyers  argued  strongly  against  it. 
and  the  members  of  the  Council  of  State  and  the  major- 
generals  themselves  were  of  course  as  strongly  for  it. 
The  debate  was  long  and  heated,  for  both  sides  under- 


A  CHANGE  OF  TACK  405 

stood  that  the  issue  was  grave.  When  the  final  divi- 
sion was  taken,  the  bih  was  thrown  out  by  a  majority  of 
thirty-six  in  a  House  of  two  hundred  and  twelve.  One 
curious  result  of  the  legislative  union  of  the  three  king- 
doms of  which  the  world  has  heard  only  too  much  in 
later  days,  was  now  first  noted.  "The  major-generals  are 
much  offended  at  the  Irish  and  Scottish  members  who, 
being  much  united,  do  sway  exceedingly  by  their  votes. 
I  hope  it  will  be  for  the  best;  or  if  the  proverb  be  true 
that  the  fox  fares  best  when  he  is  curst,  those  that  serve 
for  Ireland  will  bring  home  some  good  things  for  their 
country."  No  Catholics  were  either  electors  or  eli- 
gible, and  the  Irish  who  thus  helped  to  hold  the  balance 
were  of  course  the  colonists  from  England  and  Scot- 
land. 

"Some  gentlemen."  Thurloe  tells  Henry  Cromwell, 
"do  think  themselves  much  trampled  upon  by  this  vote 
against  their  bill,  and  are  extremely  sensible  thereof." 
That  is  to  say.  most  of  the  major-generals,  with  the 
popular  and  able  Lambert  at  their  head,  recognized 
that  the  vote  was  nothing  less  than  a  formal  decision 
against  the  army  and  its  influences.  So  bold  a  chal- 
lenge from  a  Parliament  in  whose  election  and  puri- 
fication they  had  taken  so  prominent  a  part,  roused 
sharp  anger,  and  the  consequences  of  it  were  immedi- 
ately visible  in  the  next  and  more  startling  move. 
Cromwell's  share  in  either  this  first  event,  or  in  that 
which  now  followed,  is  as  obscure  as  his  share  in  the 
removal  of  the  king  from  Holmby.  or  in  Pride's  Purge, 
or  in  the  resolve  to  put  Charles  to  death.  The  im- 
pression among  the  leaders  of  the  army  undoubtedly 
seems  to  have  been  that  in  allowing  the  recent  vote,  the 
Lord  Protector  had  in  effect  thrown  his  major-generals 
over. 

As  we  are  always  repeating  to  ourselves.  Cromwell 


406  OLIVER  CROMW'ELL 

from  1647  ^^^'^  shown  himself  ready  ro  follow  events 
rather  than  go  before.  He  was  sometimes  a  consti- 
tutional ruler,  sometimes  a  dictator,  sometimes  the 
agent  of  the  barrack,  each  in  turn  as  events  appeared 
to  point  and  to  demand.  Now  he  reverted  to  the  part 
of  constitutional  ruler.  The  elections  and  the  Parlia- 
ment showed  him  that  the  "little  invention"  of  the 
major-generals  had  been  a  mistake,  but  he  was  not  so 
sure  of  this  as  to  say  so.  Ominous  things  happened. 
Desborough,  his  brother-in-law,  brought  in  the  bill,  but 
Claypole,  his  son-in-law,  was  the  first  to  oppose  it.  An- 
other kinsman  in  the  House  denounced  the  major-gen- 
erals roundly.  People  told  him  he  would  get  a  rating 
when  next  he  visited  Whitehall.  Nothing  daunted,  he 
repaired  to  the  Protector,  and  stood  to  what  he  had 
said  with  papers  to  prove  his  case.  His  Highness 
answered  him  with  raillery,  and  taking  a  rich  scarlet 
cloak  from  his  back  and  gloves  from  his  hands  threw 
them  to  his  kinsman  (Henry  Cromwell),  "who  strutted 
in  the  House  in  his  new  finery  next  day,  to  the  great 
satisfaction  and  delight  of  some,  and  trouble  of  others." 
Parliaments  are  easily  electrified  by  small  incidents, 
and  men  felt  that  a  new  chapter  was  about  to  open. 
It  was  evident  that  Cromwell,  who  had  only  a  few  days 
before  so  strongly  defended  the  major-generals,  w,as 
now  for  sailing  on  a  fresh  tack. 

About  this  time  was  published  the  pamphlet  with 
the  famous  title  of  "Killing  no  Murder."  It  sets  out 
with  truculent  vigor  the  arguments  for  death  to 
tyrants,  with  a  direct  and  deadly  exhortation  to  apply 
them  to  the  case  of  the  Lord  Protector.  The  argu- 
ments had  been  familiar  enough  in  the  fifteenth  and 
sixteenth  centuries,  and  though  the  writer  does  not  for- 
get Ehud  and  Eglon,  Jehoiada  and  Athaliah,  he  has 
much    to    say    from    pagans    like    Aristotle,    Tacitus, 


A    CHANGE    OF    TACK  407 

Cicero,  MachiavelH.  "Had  not  his  Highness,"  he 
says,  "been  fluent  in  his  tears  and  had  a  supple  con- 
science ;  and  besides  had  to  do  with  a  people  of  great 
faith  but  little  wit,  his  courage  and  the  rest  of  his  moral 
virtues,  with  the  help  of  his  janissaries,  had  never  been 
able  so  far  to  advance  him  out  of  the  reach  of  justice 
that  we  should  have  need  to  call  for  any  other  hand  to 
remove  him  but  that  of  the  hangman."  The  Royalists 
did  not  conceal  their  approval  of  this  doctrine  of  dagger 
and  pistol.  It  is  a  most  excellent  treatise,  says  Nicho- 
las, the  king's  secretary  of  state.  Cromwell,  they  said, 
had  no  more  right  to  law  than  a  wolf  or  a  fox ;  and  the 
exiles  found  comfort  in  telling  one  another  that  the 
Protector  went  about  in  as  much  fright  as  Cain  after  he 
had  murdered  Abel.  Three  weeks  before  this  pungent 
incitement  began  to  circulate,  its  author  had  almost 
succeeded  in  a  design  that  would  have  made  pamphlets 
superfluous.  Sexby,  whom  Cromwell  had  described 
at  the  opening  of  the  new  Parliament  as  a  wretched 
creature,  an  apostate  from  all  honor  and  honesty,  one 
of  the  republicans  whom  Oliver's  later  proceedings 
had  turned  into  a  relentless  enemy,  was  deep  in  plots 
with  Royalists  abroad  and  even  with  the  Spaniards 
against  the  life  of  the  Protector.  Diligent  watch  was 
kept  upon  Sexby,  and  for  long  his  foreign  employers 
got  nothing  for  their  money.  At  length  he  secured 
a  confederate  as  determined  as  himself  and  less  well 
known  to  Thurloe's  police  in  Miles  Sindercombe,  an 
old  trooper  of  Monk's,  and  a  hater  of  tyrants  rather 
after  Roman  than  Hebrew  example.  Sindercombe 
dogged  the  Protector  with  a  pistol  in  his  pocket,  took 
a  lodging  in  the  road  between  Whitehall  and  Hampton 
Court,  where  Oliver  passed  every  week,  offered  bribes 
to  the  guards,  and  at  last  his  pertinacity  came  very  near 
to  success  in  a  plan  for  setting  fire  to  the  Protector's 


4o8  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

apartments  in  AMiitehall. 
before  a  jnr}- — a  substantial  body  of  men,  most  of 
them  justices  of  the  peace — and  was  condemned.  He 
died  in  his  bed  in  the  Tower  the  night  before  the  exe- 
cution. Sexby  said  that  the  governor  had  smothered 
him,  but  he  afterward  admitted  that  this  was  a  fab- 
rication. The  evidence  went  to  show  that  some 
mineral  poison  had  been  secretly  conveyed  to  Sinder- 
combe  by  three  women  who  had  been  allowed  to  visit 
him. 

This  dangerous  plot  was  exploded  in  January 
(1657),  and  the  Protector's  narrow  escape  made  a 
profound  impression  on  the  public  mind.  It  awoke 
sober  men,  who  are  a  majority  in  most  countries  when 
opportunity  gives  them  a  chance,  to  the  fact  that  only 
Oliver's  life  stood  between  them  and  either  anarchy  on 
the  one  hand,  or  a  vindictive  restoration  on  the  other. 
Another  design  of  the  same  sort  came  to  light  not  long 
after.  An  obscure  design  of  a  few  score  of  the  extreme 
Fifth  Monarchy  men  was  discovered  in  the  east  of  Lon- 
don in  the  month  of  April.  Venner,  a  cooper,  was  the 
leading  spirit;  his  confederates  were  of  mean  station, 
and  they  appear  to  have  had  the  same  organization  of 
circles  and  centers  that  marks  the  more  squalid  of  mod- 
ern secret  societies.  They  had  no  coherent  political 
ideas,  but  they  spoke  desperate  things  about  the  mur- 
der of  the  Protector,  and  Thurloe,  with  the  natural 
instinct  of  the  head  of  a  criminal  investigation  depart- 
ment, was  persuaded  that  stronger  hands  and  heads 
were  in  the  plot,  and  thought  of  Harrison,  Rich,  and 
Okey.  The  government  had  long  known  all  about  it, 
and  at  the  proper  moment  laid  its  hand  upon  the 
plotters.  The  opponents  of  the  alterations  in  the  gov- 
ernment professed  to  think  that  these  alterations  were 
the  source  of  the  conspiracy,  and  tried  to  make  a  little 


Drawn  by  George  T.  Tobin  from  the  original  portrait  by 
Sir  Peter  Lely  at  Swarthmore  College. 


GEORGE    FOX. 


A    CHANGE    OF    TACK  409 

political  capital  out  of  the  discontent  which  it  was  sup- 
posed to  indicate  in  the  honest  party.  The  truth  is, 
says  the  sage  Thurloe,  there  is  a  sort  of  men  who  will 
never  rest  so  long  as  they  see  troubled  waters,  and  sup- 
pose a  chance  of  carrying  out  their  foolish  principles. 
Venner's  plot  was  not  of  much  more  serious  conse- 
quence than  the  plot  against  Charles  II,  for  which  the 
same  Venner  was  hanged  four  years  later,  but  it  now 
heightened  the  general  excitement. 

The  confusion  of  the  sects  may  have  invohed  less 
direct  political  peril  than  some  of  the  government  sup- 
posed, but  it  marked  a  social  chaos  without  a  parallel. 
Oliver  was  denounced  as  the  Serpent,  the  Beast,  the 
Bastard  of  Ashdod.  The  Saints,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  engaged  on  Life  and  Death  to  stand  or  fall  with 
the  Lord  Jesus,  their  captain-general  on  his  red  horse, 
against  the  Beast's  government.  Cromwell  was  in- 
finitely patient  and  even  sympathetic  with  the  most 
fantical  of  them.  He  could  not  bear  to  quarrel  with 
the  brave  and  open-hearted  Harrison.  He  sent  for 
him  to  Whitehall,  gave  him  a  handsome  feast,  and  then 
discharged  the  duty  of  a  friend  by  admonishing  him 
to  quit  deceitful  and  slippery  ways.  Like  the  sensible 
statesman  that  he  was,  he  always  liked  to  carry  as 
many  of  his  old  friends  with  him  as  he  could,  only  if 
they  would  not  go  with  him,  then  he  went  on  alone. 

It  was  in  1654  that  the  Quakers  entered  into  history. 
It  was  mdeed  high  time,  for  the  worst  of  Puritanism 
was  that  in  so  many  of  its  phases  it  dropped  out  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  left  the  best  texts  in  the 
New  Testament  to  Arianising  heretics.  Alilitant 
Puritanism  was  often  only  half  Christian.  Quaker- 
ism has  undergone  many  developments,  but  in  all  of 
them  it  has  been  the  most  devout  of  all  endeavors  to 
turn  Christianity  into  the  religion  of  Christ.     In  un- 


410  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

couth  phrases  but  with  glowing  souls  they  carried  to 
its  furthest  point  the  protest  against  outer  form  and 
ceremonial  as  degrading  to  the  life  of  the  spirit. 
They  fell  in  with  the  corresponding  principle  of  an- 
tagonism to  powers  and  institutions  as  hindrances  to 
human  freedom.  No  other  sect  so  alarmed  and  ex- 
asperated the  authorities  for  much  the  same  military 
and  political  reasons  as  had  made  statesmen  persecute 
the  Christian  professors  in  the  early  days  of  imperial 
Rome.  Cromwell  treated  them  as  kindly  as  he  could. 
He  listened  in  his  chamber  at  Whitehall  with  atten- 
tion and  emotion  to  one  of  George  Fox's  exhortations, 
saying,  "That  is  very  good,"  or  "That  is  true,"  and 
when  they  parted  Cromwell  said  to  him,  "Come  again 
to  my  house ;  if  thou  and  I  were  but  an  hour  of  the  day 
together,  we  should  be  nearer  one  to  the  other.  I  wish 
no  more  harm  to  thee  than  I  do  to  my  own  soul." 
When  Fox  lay  in  prison,  a  friend  went  to  Cromwell 
and  begged  to  be  allowed  to  suffer  in  his  stead.  The 
Protector  answered  that  it  was  contrary  to  the  law, 
and  turning  to  his  council,  "Which  of  you,"  quoth  he, 
"would  do  as  much  for  me  if  I  were  in  the  same  con- 
dition?" 

Notwithstanding  his  own  good  will  the  Quakers 
suffered  much  bitter  usage  from  country  justices,  from 
judges,  and  from  military  officers.  The  Friends  com- 
plained that  justices  delighted  in  tendering  to  them 
the  oath  of  abjuration,  knowing  that  they  could  not 
take  it,  and  so  designing  to  make  a  spoil  of  them.  "It 
was  never  intended  for  them,"  cried  Oliver,  "I  never 
so  intended  it."  When  they  were  harshly  punished 
for  refusing  to  pay  their  tithe,  Oliver  disclaimed  all 
share  in  such  severities,  and  assured  them  that  all  per- 
secution and  cruelty  was  against  his  mind.  Thurloe, 
on  the  other  hand,  who  represented  that  secular  spirit 


1 


A    CHANGE    OF    TACK  411 

which  is  so  apt  to  be  the  counterfeit  of  statesmanship, 
saw  in  the  Quakers  foes  of  civil  government,  and  re- 
garded them  as  the  most  serious  enemies  they  had. 
The  chapter  of  Quaker  persecution  must  be  considered 
a  dark  blot  on  the  administration  of  the  Protectorate. 

A  curious  interview  is  recorded  (1654)  between  the 
Protector  and  some  of  his  angry  critics.  John  Rogers 
had  denounced  him  from  the  pulpit,  and  written 
pamphlets  lamenting  over  Oliver,  Lord  Cromwell,  from 
that  most  useful  of  all  texts,  the  everlasting  Mcne, 
Mene,TckclUpharsin;  and  for  these  and  other  proceed- 
ings he  was  arrested.  Cromwell  admitted  Rogers  and 
a  crowd  of  followers  to  an  audience.  Before  they 
reached  him  they  were  struck,  hustled,  and  abused  as 
a  pack  of  cursed  dogs  and  damned  rogues  by  the  guards 
down-stairs.  When  they  came  to  the  presence,  "The 
Great  Man  had  with  him  two  gentlemen  more,  who 
stood  by  the  fire-side,  and  a  pistol  lay  prepared  at  the 
window  where  he  himself  at  first  was.  Then  he  came 
to  the  fire-side  in  great  majesty,  without  moving  or 
showing  the  least  civility  of  a  man.  though  all  stood 
bare  to  him  and  gave  respect."  Cromwell  listened 
to  them  with  rough  good-nature,  trying  with  homely 
banter  to  bring  them  to  the  point.  'T  believe  you  speak 
many  things  according  to  the  Gospel,  but  what  you 
suffer  for  is  railing  and  evil  doing,"  and  so  forth,  like 
a  good-humored  police  magistrate  trying  to  bring 
street  preachers  to  reason  for  blocking  the  thorough- 
fare. 

Even  with  Anglicanism,  he  was.  in  spite  of  the 
ordinance  of  1656,  for  fair  play.  A  deputation  of  Lon- 
don ministers  waited  upon  the  Protector  and  com- 
plained that  the  Episcopal  clergy  got  their  congrega- 
tions away  from  them.  "Have  they  so,"  said  Oliver, 
making  as  if  he  would  say  something  to  the  captain  of 


412  OLIVER   CROAIWELL 

the  guard.  "But  hold,"  said  he,  "after  what  manner 
do  the  Cavaliers  debauch  your  people?"  "By  preach- 
ing," said  the  ministers.  "Then  preach  back  again," 
said  Oliver,  and  so  left  them  to  their  reflections.  Yet 
Cromwell's  tolerance  did  not  prevent  a  major-general 
from  sending  the  harmless  and  \'irtuous  Jeremy  Tay- 
lor arbitrarily  to  prison. 

Cromwell's  importance  in  church  history  has  been 
said  to  rest  on  this,  that  he  brought  Anabaptism  or 
enthusiasm,  one  of  the  marked  epochs  of  that  history, 
to  its  close.  "In  him,  its  greatest  leader,  Anabaptism 
reaches  its  climax,  and  yet  it  is  by  his  action  that  x\na- 
baptism  ceases  to  be  a  historic  force.  Henceforth  it 
loses  the  universal  significance  that  it  has  possessed 
for  two  centuries.  Its  political,  like  its  general  re- 
forming influence,  is  at  an  end,  and  its  religious  in- 
spirations close."  ^  When  Mazarin  (1656)  pressed 
for  the  same  toleration  for  Catholics  in  England  as 
was  asked  for  Protestants  abroad,  the  Protector  replied 
that  he  believed  Mazarm  had  less  reason  to  complain 
of  rigor  on  men's  consciences  under  him  than  under 
the  Parliament.  "And  herein  it  is  my  purpose  as  soon  as 
I  can  remove  impediments  to  make  a  further  progress," 
but  "I  may  not  (shall  I  tell  you  I  cannot)  at  this 
juncture  of  time  answer  your  call  for  toleration ;  I  say 
I  cannot,  as  to  a  public  declaration  of  my  sense  on  that 
point."  As  constable  of  the  parish  Cromwell's  power 
was  only  limited  by  the  council  of  officers,  but  national 
leadership  in  the  field  of  opinion  he  did  not  possess. 
In  1655  a  retrograde  proclamation  was  issued  for  the 
execution  of  the  laws  against  Jesuits  and  priests,  and 
for  the  conviction  of  popish  recusants.  Sensible  men 
like  Whitelocke  protested  that  it  was  not  needed,  and 
little  came  of  it.     In  165 1  Peter  \\'right,  a  priest,  was 

1  Weingarten,  p.  158. 


A    CHANGE    OF    TACK  413 

hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered  at  Tyburn,  along  with 
a  group  of  ordinary  criminals,  for  seducing  the  people ; 
and  in  1654  another  priest,  John  Southworth,  an  old 
man  of  seventy-two,  suffered  the  same  fate  for  the 
same  offense.  In  1657  the  Independents,  whose  politi- 
cal existence  had  begun  with  their  protest  for  tolera- 
tion, passed  an  act  by  which  anybody  over  sixteen  sus- 
pected of  being  a  Papist  might  be  called  upon  to  abjure 
the  leading  articles  of  Catholic  belief,  and  if  he  failed 
to  purge  himself  should  forfeit  two  thirds  of  his  prop- 
erty. From  this  flagitious  law  the  Protector  did  not 
withhold  his  assent.  It  was  one  of  the  last  legislative 
performances  of  the  Cromwellian  Parliament. 

The  Jews  had  been  banished  by  law  from  England 
since  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  yet  it  is  pretty 
certain  that  their  presence  was  not  entirely  unknown 
in  either  country  or  town.  Shakspere  and  Marlowe 
had  made  dark  figures  of  them  on  the  stage,  though 
Shakspere's  glorious  humanity  had  put  into  the  mouth 
of  Shylock  one  of  the  most  pathetic  appeals  in  litera- 
ture against  the  cruelty  of  theological  hate.  Puritanism 
itself  was  impregnated  with  ideas,  language,  argument, 
and  history,  all  borrowed  from  Jewish  antiquity  and 
sacred  books.  Roger  \\'illiams,  most  unswerving  of 
the  advocates  of  toleration,  argued  strongly  for  break- 
ing down  the  wall  of  superstition  between  Jew  and 
Gentile.  Stern  men  like  WHialley  saw  reasons,  both  of 
religion  and  policy,  why  Jews  should  be  admitted,  for 
they  would  bring  much  wealth  into  the  State,  and  they 
would  be  all  the  more  likely  to  be  converted.  Crom- 
well with  great  earnestness  held  the  same  \'ie  v,  but 
though  the  question  was  debated  candidly  and  without 
heat,  opinion  in  his  council  was  divided.  In  the  end 
all  that  he  felt  himself  able  to  do  was  to  grant  a  certain 
number  of  private  dispensations  to  individuals,  and  to 


414  OLIVER   CROMWELL 

connive  at  a  small  synagogue  and  a  cemetery.  It  was 
enough  to  show  him  on  the  side  of  freedom,  pity,  and 
light.  But  the  tolerance  of  the  Puritanism  around 
him  was  still  strictly  limited.  It  would  be  graceless 
indeed  to  underestimate  or  forget  the  debt  we  owe  to 
both  Quakers  and  Independents ;  they  it  was  who  at  a 
critical  time  made  liberty  of  conscience  a  broad,  an 
actual,  and  a  fighting  issue.  Yet  it  was  from  the 
rising  spirit  of  rationalism,  and  neither  from  the  liberal 
Anglicans  like  Taylor  nor  from  the  liberal  Puritans 
like  Cromwell  and  Milton,  that  the  central  stream  of 
toleration  flowed,  with  strength  enough  in  time  to  miti- 
gate law  and  pervade  the  national  mind. 


CHAPTER   VI 


KINGSHIP 


HE  entered  the  sanctuary,"  says  Cardinal  de  Retz 
of  a  French  politician,  "he  lifted  the  veil  that 
should  always  cover  everything  that  can  be  said  or  can 
be  believed,  as  to  the  right  of  peoples  and  the  right  of 
kings — rights  that  never  agree  so  well  together  as  in 
unbroken  silence."  This  was  the  root  of  the  difficul- 
ties that  for  nine  years  baffled  the  energy  of  Cromwell. 
The  old  monarchy  had  a  mystic  as  well  as  a  historical 
foundation.  The  soldier's  monarchy,  though  Crom- 
well believed  it  to  rest  upon  the  direct  will  of  heaven, 
yet  could  only  be  established  on  positive  and  practical 
foundations,  and  these  must  of  necessity  be  laid  in  face 
of  jealous  discussion,  without  the  curtain  of  convention 
to  screen  the  builders. 

Meanwhile  a  new  and  striking  scene  was  opening. 
The  breakdown  of  military  rule,  consternation  caused 
by  plot  upon  plot,  the  fact  that  four  years  of  dictator- 
ship had  brought  settlement  no  nearer,  all  gave  an  irre- 
sistible impetus  to  the  desire  to  try  fresh  paths.  Sir 
Christopher  Packe,  an  active  and  influential  representa- 
tive of  the  city  of  London  and  once  Lord  Mayor,  star- 
tled the  House  one  day  (February  23,  1657)  by  asking 
leave  to  bring  forward  a  proposal  for  a  new  govern- 
ment, in  which  the  chief  magistrate  was  to  take  upon 
himself  the  title  of  king,  and  the  Parliament  was  to 
415 


41 6  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

consist  of  two  Houses.  Violent  controversy  immedi- 
ately broke  out,  and  Packe  was  even  hustled  to  the 
bar  to  answer  for  his  boldness.  The  storm  quickly 
died  down ;  he  had  only  precipitated  a  move  for  which 
the  mind  of  the  House  was  ready;  leave  was  given 
to  read  his  paper;  and  the  Humble  Petition  and  Ad- 
vice, as  that  paper  came  in  time  to  be  called,  absorbed 
the  whole  attention  of  the  public  for  four  months  to 
come. 

That  Cromwell  should  have  had  no  share  in  such  a 
step  as  this  may  seem  incredible  in  view  of  the  im- 
mense power  in  his  hands  and  of  his  supreme  command 
over  popular  imagination.  Yet  the  whole  proceeding 
was  obviously  a  censure  of  some  of  his  most  decisive 
acts.  He  had  applauded  the  Instrument  of  Govern- 
ment that  had  made  him  Protector.  The  Instrument 
was  now  to  be  remodeled,  if  not  overthrown.  He  had 
broken  the  first  Parliament  of  the  Protectorate  for 
wasting  its  tmie  on  constitutional  reform;  yet  consti- 
tutional reform  was  the  very  task  that  his  second  Par- 
liament was  now  setting  about  more  earnestly  than 
ever.  He  had  tried  government  by  major-generals, 
and  exacted  taxes  for  which  no  sanction  was  given  by 
law.  That  system  was  swept  away,  and  in  the  new 
project  a  clause  was  passed  against  taxation  without 
consent  of  Parliament,  stringent  enough  to  satisfy  the 
sternest  of  popular  reformers.  Only  six  months  ago 
he  had  shut  the  doors  of  the  House  against  a  hundred 
duly  elected  members ;  and  in  the  previous  Parliament 
he  had  in  the  same  w^ay  insisted  that  no  member  should 
sit  who  had  not  signed  a  recognition  of  his  own  au- 
thority. All  these  high-handed  acts  were  now  for- 
mally stamped  as  wrong.  It  was  laid  down  that 
persons  legally  chosen  by  free  election  could  only  be 
excluded  from  Parliament  by  judgment  and  consent. 


KINGSHIP  417 

of  that  House  whereof  they  were  members.  The  sub- 
stitution of  the  title  of  king  for  protector  was  there- 
fore the  least  part  of  the  matter.  The  real  question 
that  must  have  weighed  upon  Cromwell  was  whether 
the  greater  title  did  not  carry  with  it  lessened  power; 
whether,  although  his  style  and  dignity  were  undoubt- 
edly exalted,  the  exaltation  in  substance  was  not  rather 
that  of  the  Parliament.  Assent  to  a  change  in  name 
and  form  was  at  bottom  a  revolution  in  policy,  and  in 
this  revolution,  with  all  that  it  involved,  Cromwell 
slowly,  ponderously,  and  after  long  periods  of  doubt 
and  misgivings  decided  to  acquiesce.  Yet  the  change 
of  title  was  a  momentous  thing  in  itself,  in  the  eyes 
alike  of  those  who  sought  it  and  those  who  resisted. 
The  strongest  advocates  of  the  kingship  were  the  law- 
yers, that  powerful  profession  of  which  historians  and 
politicians  do  not  always  recognize  the  permeating 
influence  even  through  the  motions  of  revolutionary 
politics.  The  lawyers  argued  for  a  king,  and  their 
points  were  cogent.  The  office  of  a  king,  they  said, 
is  interwoven  with  the  whole  body  of  the  law  and  the 
whole  working  of  national  institutions.  The  pre- 
rogatives of  a  king  with  all  their  limits  and  dimensions 
are  well  understood,  but  who  can  define  the  rights  or 
the  duties  of  a  protector  ?  The  people,  again,  only  love 
what  they  know;  and  what  they  know  is  the  crown, 
the  ancient  symbol  of  order,  unity,  and  rule.  These 
were  sound  arguments,  appealing  to  Cromwell's  con- 
servative instincts.  The  only  argument  by  which  he 
could  have  refuted  them  was  a  demonstration  that 
the  Protectorate  had  brought  a  settlement,  and  this  was 
just  what  the  Protectorate  had  as  yet  notoriously  failed 
to  do.  It  is  impossible  not  to  believe  that  in  this  crisis 
of  things  Cromwell  had  convinced  himself  that  the 


4i8  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

From  the  balance  of  argument  he  turned,  as  states- 
men must  or  should,  to  the  balance  of  forces;  to  that 
formidable  host  of  armed  men  whom  he  had  welded 
into  the  most  powerful  military  instrument  in  Europe, 
whom  he  had  led  to  one  victory  after  another  in  nine 
years  of  toil  and  peril,  whom  he  had  followed  rather 
than  led  in  all  the  successive  stages  of  their  revolution- 
ary fervor,  whose  enthusiasms  were  the  breath  of  his 
nostrils.  How  would  these  stern  warriors  view  the 
sight  of  their  chief  putting  on  the  mantle  of  that  hated 
office  and  title  which  they  had  been  taught  to  regard 
as  the  ensigns  of  bondage,  and  against  which  the  Lord 
of  Hosts  had  borne  such  crushing  witness.  Well 
might  Oliver  say  that  he  had  lived  all  the  latter  part 
of  his  life  in  the  fire,  in  the  midst  of  troubles,  and  that 
all  the  things  together  that  had  befallen  him  since  he 
was  first  engaged  in  the  affairs  of  the  Commonwealth 
could  not  so  move  his  heart  and  spirit  as  did  this 
proposal. 

With  angry  promptness  the  officers  showed  their 
teeth.  Lambert  and  others  of  the  military  leaders 
instantly  declared  against  the  new  design.  Within 
three  days  of  Packe's  announcement  a  hundred  of 
them  waited  on  the  Protector  and  besought  him  not 
to  listen  to  the  proffer  of  the  crown.  It  would  dis- 
please the  army,  and  the  godly;  it  would  be  a  danger 
to  the  nation  and  to  his  own  person ;  it  would  one  day 
bring  back  the  exiled  line.  Cromwell  dealt  very  faith- 
fully with  them  in  reply.  He  liked  the  title  as  little 
as  they  liked  it,  a  mere  feather  in  a  hat,  a  toy  for  a 
child.  But  had  they  not  themselves  proposed  it  in 
the  Instrument?  Here  he  glanced  at  Lambert,  for- 
merly the  main  author  of  such  a  proposal  in  1653,  and 
now  in  1657  the  main  instigator  of  opposition.  Crom- 
well continued  in  the  same  vein  of  energetic  remoa- 


KINGSHIP  419 

strance,  like  a  man  wearied,  as  he  said,  of  being  on  all 
occasions  made  a  drudge.  Strangely  does  he  light  up 
the  past.  His  reply  was  a  double  arraignment  of  him- 
self and  of  them  for  the  most  important  things  that 
most  of'  them  had  done.  He  said  it  was  they  who  had 
made  him  dissolve  the  Long  Parliament.  It  was  they 
who  had  named  the  convention  that  follow^ed,  which 
went  to  such  fantastic  lengths  that  nobody  could  be 
sure  of  calling  anything  his  ow^n.  It  was  they  wiio 
had  pressed  him  to  starve  out  the  ministers  of  religion. 
Was  it  not  they  too  who  must  needs  dissolve  the  Par- 
liament in  1655  for  trying  to  mend  the  Instrument,  as 
if  the  Instrument  did  not  need  to  be  mended?  They 
had  thought  it  necessary  to  have  major-generals,  and 
the  major-generals  did  their  part  well.  Then  after 
that,  nothing  would  content  them  till  a  Parliament  was 
called.  He  gave  his  vote  against  it,  but  they  were  con- 
fident that  somehow  they  would  get  men  chosen  to 
their  heart's  desire.  How  they  had  failed  therein,  and 
how  much  the  country  had  been  disobliged,  was  only 
too  well  known.  Among  other  things,  this  string  of 
reproaches  helps  to  explain  the  curious  remark  of 
Henry  Cromwell  while  walking  in  the  garden  of  Lud- 
low's country  house  at  Monkstown  in  Dublin  Bay. 
"You  that  are  here,"  he  said,  "may  think  that  my 
father  has  power,  but  they  make  a  very  kickshaw  of 
him  at  London." 

Oliver's  rebuke  made  the  impression  that  he  had  cal- 
culated. Time  w^as  gained,  and  a  compromise  agreed 
to.  The  question  of  the  kingly  title  was  postponed 
until  the  end  of  the  bill,  and  the  rest  of  its  proposals 
went  forward  in  order.  On  any  view  this  delay  on 
Cromwell's  part  was  a  piece  of  sound  tactics.  Those 
who  would  not  have  valued  the  other  reforms  without 
a  king  as  keystone  of  the  reconstructed  arch,  assented 


420  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

to  the  reforms  in  the  hope  that  kingship  would  follow. 
Those  who  hated  the  kingship,  pressed  for  enlargement 
of  the  constitution  with  the  hope  that  the  question  of 
the  crown  would  drop.  When  the  clause  was  at  last 
reached  (March  25),  the  title  of  king  was  carried  by 
one  hundred  and  twenty-three  to  sixty-two.  Opera- 
tions in  the  House  were  completed  by  the  end  of  March, 
and  on  the  last  day  of  the  month  ( 1657)  the  new  con- 
stitution engrossed  on  vellum  was  submitted  to  the 
Protector  at  Whitehall.  He  replied  in  a  tone  of  dig- 
nity not  without  pathos,  that  it  was  the  greatest  weight 
of  anything  that  was  ever  laid  upon  a  man ;  that  he 
might  perhaps  be  at  the  end  of  his  work ;  that  were  he 
to  make  a  mistake  in  judgment  here,  it  were  better  that 
he  had  never  been  born!  and  that  he  must  take  time 
for  the  utmost  deliberaton  and  consideration.  Then 
began  a  series  of  parleys  and  conferences  that  lasted 
for  the  whole  of  the  month  of  April,  with  endless  du- 
bitances,  postponements,  and  adjournments,  iteration 
and  reiteration  of  arguments.  Cromwell's  speeches 
were  found  "dark  and  promiscuous,"  nor  can  a  modern 
reader  wonder;  and  he  undoubtedly  showed  extraor- 
dinary readiness  in  keeping  off  the  point  and  balking 
the  eager  interlocutor.  One  passage  (April  13)  is 
famous.  He  told  them  that  he  had  undertaken  his 
position  originally  not  so  much  out  of  a  hope  of  doing 
any  good,  as  from  a  desire  to  prevent  mischief  and  evil. 
"For  truly  I  have  often  thought  that  I  could  not  tell 
what  my  business  was,  nor  what  I  was  in  the  place  I 
stood  in,  save  comparing  myself  to  a  good  constable 
set  to  keep  the  peace  of  the  parish."  That,  he  said, 
had  been  his  content  and  satisfaction  in  all  the  troubles 
he  had  undergone,  that  they  still  had  peace.  Nobody 
any  longer  doubts  that  this  homely  image  was  the 
whole   truth.      The  question  was   whether  the  con- 


From  the  original  portrait  in  possession  of  Miss  Disbrowe. 
SAMUEL  DESBOROUGH. 


KINGSHIP  421 

stable's  truncheon  should  now  be  struck  from  his  hand, 
or  more  boldly  grasped.  Time  after  time  they  parted, 
in  the  words  of  Clarendon,  "all  men  standing  at  gaze 
and  in  terrible  suspense  according  to  their  several  hopes 
and  fears,  till  they  knew  what  he  would  determine. 
All  the  dispute  was  now  within  his  own  chamber,  and 
there  is  no  question  that  the  man  was  in  great  agony, 
and  in  his  own  mind  he  did  heartily  desire  to  be  king, 
and  thought  it  the  only  way  to  be  safe." 

The  feeling  of  his  friends  may  be  gathered  from 
Henry  Cromwell,  then  in  Ireland.  'T  look  on  some 
of  them,"  he  said,  speaking  of  the  "contrariant"  offi- 
cers, as  'S'ainly  arrogating  to  themselves  too  great  a 
share  in  his  Highness*  government,  and  to  have  too 
big  an  opinion  of  their  own  merit  in  subverting  the 
old."  He  thinks  the  gaudy  feather  in  the  hat  of  au- 
thority a  matter  of  little  concern  either  way.  If  the 
army  men  were  foolish  in  resenting  it  with  so  much 
heat,  the  heat  of  those  who  insisted  on  it  was  foolish 
too.  Whether  the  gaudy  feather  decked  the  hat  or 
not,  anything  would  be  better  than  the  loss  of  the 
scheme  as  a  whole;  the  scheme  was  good  in  itself,  and 
its  loss  would  puff  up  the  contrariants  and  make  it 
easier  for  them,  still  remaining  in  power  as  they  would 
remain,  to  have  their  own  way.  It  is  plain  that  the 
present  dissension  on  the  kingship  was  an  explosion  of 
griefs  and  jealousies  that  were  not  new. 

At  last  Cromwell  declared  to  several  members  that 
he  was  resolved  to  accept.  Lambert,  Desborough,  and 
Fleetwood  warned  him  that  if  he  did,  they  must  with- 
draw from  all  public  employment,  and  that  other  offi- 
cers of  quality  would  certainly  go  with  them.  Desbor- 
ough, happening  after  he  knew  the  momentous  decision 
to  meet  Colonel  Pride,  told  him  that  Cromwell  had 
made  up  his  mmd  to  accept  the  crown.    "That  he  shall 


422  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

not,"  said  the  unfaltering  Pride.  "Why,''  asked  the 
other,  "how  wilt  thou  hinder  it?"  "Get  me  a  petition 
drawn,"  answered  Pride,  "and  I  will  prevent  it."  The 
petition  was  drawn,  and  on  the  day  when  the  House 
was  expecting  Oliver's  assent,  a  group  of  seven-and- 
twenty  officers  appeared  at  the  bar  with  the  prayer 
that  they  should  not  press  the  kingship  any  further. 
Pride's  confidence  in  the  effect  of  a  remonstrance  from 
the  officers  was  justified  by  the  event.  When  news  of 
this  daring  move  against  both  the  determination  of  the 
Protector,  and  the  strong  feeling  of  the  Parliament, 
reached  Whitehall,  Cromwell  was  reported  as  ex- 
tremely angry,  calling  it  a  higli  breach  of  privilege, 
and  the  greatest  injury  they  could  have  offered  him 
short  of  cutting  his  throat.  He  sent  for  Fleetwood, 
reproached  him  for  allowing  things  to  go  so  far,  while 
knowing  so  well  that  without  the  assent  of  the  army 
he  was  decided  against  the  kingship ;  and  bade  him  go 
immediately  to  Westminster  to  stay  further  proceed- 
ings on  the  petition,  and  instantly  invite  the  House  to 
come  to  W^hitehall  to  hear  his  definite  reply.  They 
came.  He  gave  his  decision  in  a  short,  firm  speech, 
to  the  effect  that  if  he  accepted  the  kingship,  at  the 
best  he  should  do  it  doubtingly,  and  assuredly  what- 
ever was  done  doubtingly  was  not  of  faith.  "I  can- 
not," he  said,  "undertake  this  government  with  the 
title  of  king;  and  that  is  mine  answer  to  this  great 
and  weighty  business."  This  was  all  he  said,  but 
everybody  knew  that  he  had  suffered  his  first  repulse, 
a  wound  in  the  house  of  his  friend.  He  set  his  mark 
on  those  who  had  withstood  him,  and  Lambert  was 
speedily  dismissed.  It  is  not  easy  to  explain  why,  if 
Cromwell  did  not  fear  to  exile  Lambert  from  place, 
as  he  had  not  feared  to  send  Harrison  to  prison,  he 
should  not  have  held  to  his  course  in  reliance  on  his 


KINGSHIP  423 

own  authority  in  the  army.  Clarendon  supposes  his 
courage  for  once  to  have  failed,  and  his  genius  to  have 
forsaken  him.  Swift,  in  that  whimsical  list  of  Mean 
and  Great  Figures  made  by  several  persons  in  some 
particular  action  of  their  lives,  counts  Cromwell  a 
great  figure  when  he  quelled  a  mutiny  in  Hyde  Park, 
and  a  mean  one  the  day  when,  out  of  fear,  he  refused 
the  kingship.  As  usual  Cromwell  was  more  politic 
than  the  army.  It  is  strange  that  some  who  eulogize 
him  as  a  great  conservative  statesman,  yet  eulogize 
with  equal  fervor  the  political  sagacity  of  the  army, 
who  as  a  matter  of  fact  resisted  almost  every  conserva- 
tive step  that  he  wished  to  take,  while  they  hurried 
him  on  to  all  those  revolutionary  steps  to  which  he 
was  most  averse.  However  this  may  be.  we  may  at 
least  be  sure  that  "few  men  were  better  judges  of  what 
might  be  achieved  by  daring."  and  that  if  he  deter- 
mined that  the  occasion  was  not  ripe,  he  must  be 
assumed  to  have  known  what  he  was  about. 

The  House  proceeded  with  their  measure  on  the 
new  footing,  and  on  June  26th  Oliver  was  solemnly  in- 
stalled as  Lord  Protector  under  the  new  law.  Though 
the  royal  title  was  in  abeyance,  the  scene  marked  the 
conversion  of  what  had  first  been  a  military  dictator- 
ship, and  then  the  Protectorate  of  a  Republic,  into  a 
constitutional  monarchy.  A  rich  canopy  was  prepared 
at  the  upper  end  of  Westminster  Hall,  and  under  it 
was  placed  the  royal  Coronation  Chair  of  Scotland, 
which  had  been  brought  from  the  x\bbey.  On  the 
table  lay  a  magnificent  Bible,  and  the  sword  and  scepter 
of  the  Commonwealth.  When  the  Lord  Protector 
had  entered,  the  Speaker,  in  the  name  of  the  Parlia- 
ment, placed  upon  his  shoulders  a  mantle  of  purple  vel- 
vet lined  with  ermine,  girt  him  with  the  sword,  de- 
livered into  his  hands  the  scepter  of  massy  gold,  and 


424  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

administered  the  oath  of  fidehty  to  the  new  constitu- 
tion. A  prayer  was  offered  up,  and  then  Cromwell, 
amid  trumpet  blasts  and  loud  shouting  from  the  peo- 
ple who  thronged  the  hall,  took  his  seat  in  the  chair, 
holding  the  scepter  in  his  right  hand,  with  the  am- 
bassador of  Louis  XIV  on  the  one  side,  and  the 
ambassador  of  the  United  Provinces  on  the  other. 
''What  a  comely  and  glorious  sight  it  is,"  said  the 
Speaker,  "to  behold  a  Lord  Protector  in  a  purple  robe, 
with  a  scepter  in  his  hand,  with  the  sword  of  justice 
girt  about  him,  and  his  eyes  fixed  upon  the  Bible! 
Long  may  you  enjoy  them  all  to  your  own  comfort  and 
the  comfort  of  the  people  of  these  nations."  Before 
many  months  were  over,  Oliver  was  declaring  to  them, 
"I  can  say  in  the  presence  of  God.  in  comparison  with 
whom  we  are  but  like  poor  creeping  ants  upon  the 
earth,  that  I  would  have  been  glad  to  have  lived  under 
my  woodside,  to  have  kept  a  flock  of  sheep,  rather  than 
undertake  such  a  government  as  this." 

The  Protectorate  has  sometimes  been  treated  as  a 
new  and  original  settlement  of  the  crucial  question  of 
Parliamentary  sovereignty.  On  the  contrary,  the  his- 
tory of  the  Protectorate  in  its  two  phases,  under  the 
two  Instruments  of  1653  and  1657  by  which  it  was 
constituted,  seems  rather  to  mark  a  progressive  return 
to  an  old  system  than  the  creation  of  a  new  one.  The 
"Agreement  of  the  People"  (1649)  ^"^'^^  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  idea  of  the  absolute  supremacy  of  a  single 
elective  House.  The  "Instrument  of  Government" 
(  1653)  went  a  certain  way  toward  mitigating  this 
supremacy  by  entrusting  executive  power  to  a  single 
person,  subject  to  the  assent  and  cooperation  of  a  coun- 
cil itself  the  creation,  at  first  direct  and  afterward  in- 
direct, of  the  single  House.  The  "Humble  Petition 
and  Advice"  (1657)  in  effect  restored  the  principle  of 


KINGSHIP  425 

monarchy,  and  took  away  from  Parliament  the  right  in 
future  to  choose  the  monarch.  The  oath  prescribed 
for  a  pi  ivy  council  was  an  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  per- 
son and  authority  of  the  Lord  Protector  and  his  suc- 
cessors, and  he  was  clothed  with  the  more  than  regal 
right  of  deciding  who  the  successor  should  be.  On 
him  was  conferred  the  further  power  of  naming  the 
members  of  the  new  Second  House.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  council  or  cabinet  by  whose  advice  the 
Lord  Protector  was  bound  to  govern,  was  to  be  ap- 
proved by  both  Houses,  and  to  be  irremovable  without 
the  consent  of  Parliament.  The  Protectorate  then  was 
finally  established,  so  far  as  constitutional  documents 
go  and  in  rudimentary  forms,  on  the  same  principles 
of  Parliamentary  supremacy  over  the  executive  and  of 
ministerial  responsibility  that  have  developed  our  mod- 
ern system  of  government  by  Parliamentary  cabinet. 


CHAPTER  VII 


PERSONAL    TRAITS 


THERE  is  no  sign  that  the  wonderful  fortunes  that 
had  befallen  him  in  the  seventeen  years  since 
he  quitted  his  woodside,  his  fields  and  flocks,  had 
altered  the  soundness  of  Cromwell's  nature.  Large  af- 
fairs had  made  his  vision  broader ;  power  had  hardened 
his  grasp;  manifold  necessities  of  men  and  things  had 
taught  him  lessons  of  reserve,  compliance,  suppleness, 
and  silence ;  great  station  brought  out  new  dignity  of 
carriage.  But  the  foundations  were  unchanged.  Time 
never  choked  the  springs  of  warm  affection  in  him,  the 
true  refreshment  of  every  careworn  life.  In  his  family 
he  was  as  tender  and  as  solicitous  in  the  hour  of  his 
glory  as  he  had  been  in  the  distant  days  at  St.  I\'es  and 
Ely.  It  was  in  the  spring  of  1654  that  he  took  up  his 
residence  at  Whitehall.  "His  wife  seemed  at  first  un- 
willing to  remove  thither,  tho'  she  afterward  became 
better  satisfied  with  her  grandeur.  His  mother,  who 
by  reason  of  her  great  age  was  not  so  easily  flattered 
with  these  temptations,  very  much  mistrusted  the  issue 
of  affairs,  and  would  be  often  afraid,  when  she  heard 
the  noise  of  a  musket,  that  her  son  was  shot,  being 
exceedingly  dissatisfied  unless  she  might  see  him  once 
a  day  at  least."  Only  six  months  after  her  installation 
in  the  splendors  of  Whitehall  the  aged  woman  passed 
426 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  427 

away.  "My  Lord  Protector's  mother/"  writes  Thurloe 
in  November,  "of  ninety-four  years  old.  died  the  last 
night,  and  a  little  before  her  death  gave  my  lord  her 
blessing  in  these  words :  'The  Lord  cause  his  face  to 
shine  upon  you,  and  comfort  ye  in  all  your  adversities, 
and  enable  you  to  do  great  things  for  the  glory  of  your 
most  high  God,  and  to  be  a  relief  unto  his  people ;  my 
dear  son,  I  leave  my  heart  with  thee;  a  good-night.'  " 
His  letters  to  his  wife  tell  their  own  tale  of  fond 
importunity  and  affectionate  response : 

'I  have  not  leisure  to  write  much,'  he  says  to  her  from 
Dunbar.  '  But  I  could  chide  thee  that  in  many  of  thy  letters 
thou  writest  to  me,  that  I  should  not  be  unmindful  of  thee  and 
thy  little  ones.  Truly  if  I  love  you  not  too  well,  I  think  I  err 
not  on  the  other  hand  much.  Thou  art  dearer  to  me  than 
any  creature,  let  that  suffice.' 


And  then  he  told  her,  as  we  have  seen,  that  he  was 
growing  an  old  man  and  felt  the  infirmities  of  age 
marvelously  stealing  upon  him.  He  was  little  more 
than  fifty,  and  their  union  had  lasted  thirty  years. 
Seven  months  later  he  writes  to  her  that  he  is  increased 
in  strength  in  his  outward  man : 

But  that  will  not  satisfy  me,  except  I  get  a  heart  to  love 
and  serve  my  heavenly  Father  better.  .  .  .  Pray  for  me ;  truly 
I  do  daily  for  thee  and  the  dear  family,  and  God  Almighty 
bless  ye  all  with  his  spiritual  blessings.  .  .  .  My  love  to  the 
dear  little  ones ;  I  pray  for  grace  for  them.  I  thank  them  for 
their  letters:  let  me  have  them  often.  ...  If  Dick  Cromwell 
and  his  wife  be  with  you,  my  dear  love  to  them.  I  pray  for 
them;  they  shall,  God  willing,  hear  from  me.  I  love  them 
very  dearly.  Truly  I  am  not  able  as  yet  to  write  much.  I 
am  weary,  and  rest,  ever  thine. 


428  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

He  was  ever,  says  Thurloe,  a  most  indulgent  and 
tender  father.  Richard  Cromwell,  as  history  well 
knows,  had  little  share  of  the  mastering  energies  that 
made  his  father  "chief  of  men."  With  none  but  re- 
spectable qualities,  with  a  taste  for  hawking,  hunting, 
and  horse-racing,  he  lacked  strenuous  purpose,  taking 
life  as  it  came,  not  shaping  it.  When  the  time  arrived 
for  his  son's  marriage,  Cromwell,  though  plunged 
deep  in  public  anxieties,  did  his  share  about  the  choice 
of  a  wise  connection,  about  money,  about  the  life  of 
the  young  couple,  with  prudent  care.  Henry  Crom- 
well, an  active  soldier,  an  administrator  of  conspicuous 
judgment  and  tact,  and  a  politician  with  sense  and 
acuteness,  had  been  commander-in-chief  in  Ireland 
since  1655,  and  his  father  thought  well  enough  of  him 
in  1657,  though  still  hardly  thirty,  to  make  him  lord- 
deputy  in  succession  to  Fleetwood.  Five  years  before, 
Fleetwood  had  married  Bridget  Cromwell,  widow  of 
the  brave  and  keen-witted  Ireton.  Elizabeth,  said  to 
have  been  Oliver's  favorite  daughter,  was  married  to 
Claypole,  a  Northamptonshire  gentleman,  of  respect- 
able family  and  estate.  These  two  were  staying  at  the 
Cockpit  in  Whitehall  in  1651.  "Mind  poor  Betty  of 
the  Lord's  great  mercy,''  writes  Cromwell  to  her 
mother.  "Oh,  I  desire  her  not  only  to  seek  the  Lord 
in  her  necessity,  but  in  deed  and  in  truth  to  turn  to  the 
Lord;  and  to  take  heed  to  a  departing  heart,  and  of 
being  cozened  with  worldly  vanities  and  worldly  com- 
pany, which  I  doubt  she  is  too  subject  to.  I  earnestly 
and  frequently  pray  for  her  and  for  him.  Truly  they 
are  dear  to  me,  very  dear ;  and  I  am  in  fear  lest  Satan 
should  deceive  them — knowing  how  weak  our  hearts 
are,  and  how  subtle  the  Adversary  is,  and  what  way 
the  deceitfulness  of  our  hearts  and  the  vain  world  make 
for  his  temptations." 


1 

From  the  original  portrait  at  Chequers  Court,  by  permission 
of  Mrs.  Frankland-Russell-Astley. 

ELIZABETH   CROMWELL,  DAUGHTER   OF    SIR   THOMAS    STEWARD 

OF    ELY,  WIFE   OF    ROBERT   CROMWELL,  AND 

MOTHER   OF   OLIVER    CROMWELL. 

1 

I 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  429 

Not  long  after  the  establishment  of  the  second  Pro- 
tectorate, the  youngest  daughters  made  matches  which 
were  taken  by  jealous  onlookers  to  be  still  further  signs 
of  the  growth  of  Cromwell's  reactionary  ambition. 
Lady  Mary,  now  one-and-twenty,  married  Lord  Fau- 
conberg,  and  Lady  Frances  in  the  same  week  married 
Robert  Rich,  grandson  and  heir  of  the  Earl  of  War- 
wick. Swift  tells  Stella  how  he  met  Lady  Faucon- 
berg  at  a  christening  in  17 10,  two  years  before  her 
death.  He  thought  her  extremely  like  her  father's 
pictures. 

The  Protector  delighted  in  music,  was  fond  of 
hawking,  hunting,  coursing,  liked  a  game  of  bowls, 
and  took  more  than  a  sportsman's  pleasure  in  fine 
horses.  There  is  little  evidence  that  he  was  other  than 
indifferent  to  profane  letters,  but  as  Chancellor  of  the 
University  of  Oxford  he  encouraged  the  religious 
studies  of  the  place,  helped  in  the  production  of  Wal- 
ton's polyglot  bible,  and  set  up  a  college  at  Durham. 
Cromwell  had  compass  of  mind  enough  to  realise  the 
duty  of  a  state  to  learning,  but  the  promotion  of  reli- 
gion was  always  his  commanding  interest. 

Precisians  found  the  court  at  Whitehall  frivolous 
and  lax,  but  what  they  called  frivolity  was  nothing 
worse  than  the  venial  sin  of  cheerfulness.  One  of  the 
Dutch  ambassadors  in  1654  describes  what  life  at  court 
was  like  on  occasions  of  state,  and  the  picture  is  worth 
reproducing : 

The  Master  of  the  Ceremonies  came  to  fetch  us  in  two 
coaches  of  His  Highness  about  half  an  hour  past  one,  and 
brought  us  to  Whitehall,  where  twelve  trumpeters  were  ready, 
sounding  against  our  coming.  My  lady  Nieuport  and  my 
wife  were  brought  to  His  Highness  presently  .  .  .  who  re- 
ceived us  with  great  demonstration  of  amity.     After  we  staid  a 


430  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

little,  we  were  conducted  into  another  room,  where  we  found 
a  table  ready  covered.  His  Highness  sat  on  one  side  of  it 
alone;  my  lord  B.,  N.,  and  myself  at  the  upper  end,  and 
Lord  President  Lawrence  and  others  next  to  us.  There 
was  in  the  same  room  another  table  covered  for  other 
lords  of  the  council  and  others.  At  the  table  of  my  Lady 
Protectrice  dined  my  lady  N.,  my  wife,  my  lady  Lambert, 
my  lord  Protector's  daughter,  and  mine.  The  music  played 
all  the  while  we  were  at  dinner.  The  Lord  Protector  [then] 
had  us  into  another  room,  where  the  lady  Protectrice  and 
others  came  to  us:  where  we  had  also  music,  and  wine,  and  a 
psalm  sung  which  His  Highness  gave  us,  and  told  us  it  was 
yet  the  best  paper  that  had  been  exchanged  between  us ;  and 
from  thence  we  were  had  into  a  gallery,  next  the  river,  where 
we  walked  with  His  Highness  about  half  an  hour,  and  then 
took  our  leaves,  and  were  conducted  back  again  to  our  houses, 
after  the  same  manner  as  we  were  brought. 

Baxter  tells  a  less  genial  story.  Cromwell,  after 
hearing  him  preach,  sent  for  him.  The  great  divine 
found  him  with  Broghill,  Lambert,  and  Thurloe. 
Cromwell  "began  a  long  and  tedious  speech  of  God's 
providence  in  the  change  of  government,  and  how  God 
had  owned  it,  and  what  great  things  had  been  done  at 
home  and  abroad  in  Spain  and  Holland."  Lambert 
fell  asleep.  Baxter  attacked  the  change  of  govern- 
ment, and  Cromwell  with  some  passion  defended  it. 
"A  few  days  after,  he  sent  for  me  again  to  hear  my 
judgment  about  liberty  of  conscience,  which  he  pre- 
tended to  be  most  zealous  for,  before  almost  all  his 
privy  council ;  where,  after  another  slow  tedious  speech 
of  his,  I  told  him  a  little  of  my  judgment.  And  when 
two  of  his  company  had  spun  out  a  great  deal  more  of 
the  time  in  such-like  tedious,  but  more  ignorant 
speeches,  some  four  or  five  hours  being  spent,  I  told 
him  that  if  he  would  be  at  the  labor  to  read  it,  I  could 


From  the  portrait  at  Chequers  Court,  by  permission  of  Mrs.  Frankland-Russell-Astley. 
JOHN   CLAYPOLE. 


I 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  431 

tell  him  more  of  my  mind  in  writing  in  two  sheets,  than 
in  that  way  of  speaking  in  many  days."  And  this  in 
truth  we  may  well  believe.  It  was  the  age  of  long  dis- 
course and  ecstatic  exercises.  John  Howe,  who  had 
first  attracted  Cromwell  by  preaching  for  two  hours, 
and  then  turning  the  hour-glass  for  a  third,  has  told  us 
that  on  a  Sunday  or  a  fast-day  he  began  about  nine  in 
the  morning  with  a  prayer  for  about  quarter  of  an 
hour,  in  which  he  begged  a  blessing  on  the  work  of  the 
day,  and  afterward  expounded  a  chapter  for  about  three 
quarters ;  then  prayed  for  an  hour,  preached  for  an- 
other hour,  and  prayed  for  half  an  hour:  then  he  re- 
tired to  refresh  himself  for  quarter  of  an  hour  or  more, 
the  people  singing  all  the  while,  and  then  came  again 
into  the  pulpit,  and  prayed  for  another  hour,  and  gave 
them  another  sermon  of  about  an  hour's  length ;  and 
then  concluded  toward  four  o'clock  with  a  final  half 
hour  of  prayer. 

Cromwell  had  that  mark  of  greatness  in  a  ruler  that 
he  was  well  served.  No  prince  had  ever  abler  or 
more  faithful  agents  in  arms,  diplomacy,  administra- 
tion. Blake,  Monk,  Lockhart,  Thurloe  are  conspicu- 
ous names  in  a  list  that  might  easily  be  made  longer. 
Familiars  Cromwell  had  none.  The  sage  and  in- 
defatigable Thurloe,  who  more  closely  than  any  of  the 
others  resembled  the  deep-browed  counselors  that 
stood  around  the  throne  of  Elizabeth,  came  nearest  to 
the  heart  of  the  Protector's  deliberations.  Thurloe 
tells  us  of  himself  that  he  always  distrusted  his  own 
counsels,  when  they  sprang  from  moments  of  despond- 
ency— an  implication  that  wisdom  goes  with  cheerful- 
ness, of  which  Cromwell  was  most  likely  the  inspirer. 
The  extent  and  manner  of  his  resort  to  advice  is  no 
small  measure  of  the  fitness  of  a  man  for  large  affairs. 
Oliver  was  not  of  the  evil  Napoleonic  buifd.     He  was 


432  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

liable  to  bursts  of  passion,  he  had  his  moods,  he  was  un- 
wisely and  fatally  impatient  of  Parliamentary  discus- 
sion ;  but  nobody  knew  better  the  value  of  consultation 
in  good  faith,  of  serious  conference  among  men  sin- 
cerely bent  on  common  aims,  of  the  arts  of  honest  per- 
suasion as  distinguished  from  cajolery.  Of  that  pettish 
egotism  which  regards  a  step  taken  on  advice  as  humili- 
ation, he  had  not  a  trace ;  he  was  a  man.  There  are  no 
signs  that  he  ever  had,  what  even  strong  men  have  not 
always  been  without,  a  taste  for  sycophants.  White- 
locke  has  described  how  upon  great  businesses  the  Pro- 
tector was  wont  to  advise  with  himself,  Thurloe,  and 
a  few  others;  how  he  would  shut  himself  up  with  them 
for  three  or  four  hours  together,  "would  sometimes  be 
very  cheerful,  and  laying  aside  his  greatness  would  be 
exceedingly  familiar,  and  by  way  of  diversion  would 
make  verses  with  them,  and  every  one  must  try  his 
fancy.  He  commonly  called  for  tobacco,  pipes,  and  a 
candle,  and  would  now  and  then  take  tobacco  himself; 
then  he  would  fall  again  to  his  serious  and  great  busi- 
ness." This  did  not  prevent  persons  around  him  from 
knowing  that  whatever  resolutions  His  Highness  took 
would  be  his  own.  Chatham  inveighing  against  Lord 
North  in  1770,  charged  him  with  being  without  that 
sagacity  which  is  the  true  source  of  information — 
sagacity  to  compare  causes  and  effects,  to  judge  of  the 
present  state  of  things,  and  to  discern  the  future  by 
a  careful  review  of  the  past.  "Oliver  Cromwell,  who 
astonished  mankind  by  his  intelligence,"  he  proceeds, 
"did  not  derive  it  from  spies  in  the  cabinei  of  every 
prince  in  Europe;  he  drew  it  from  the  cabinet  of  his 
own  sagacious  mind."  Yet  there  is  a  passage  in  a  letter 
from  Thurloe  to  Henry  Cromwell  not  many  weeks 
before  the  end,  where  that  faithful  servant  regrets  his 
master's  too  ready  compliance.     "His  Highness  finding 


i 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  433 

he  can  have  no  advice  from  those  he  most  expected  it 
from,  saith  he  will  take  his  own  resolutions,  and  that 
he  cannot  any  longer  satisfy  himself  to  sit  still,  and 
make  himself  guilty  of  the  loss  of  all  the  honest  party; 
and  truly  I  have  long  wished  that  His  Highness  would 
proceed  according  to  his  own  satisfaction,  and  not  so 
much  consider  others." 


CHAPTER   VIII 


FOREIGN    POLICY 


WE  have  all  learned  that  no  inconsiderable  part  of 
history  is  a  record  of  the  illusions  of  statesmen. 
Was  Cromwell's  foreign  policy  one  of  them?  To  the 
prior  question  what  his  foreign  policy  was,  no  single 
comprehensive  answer  can  be  given.  It  was  mixed; 
defensive  and  aggressive,  pacific  and  warlike;  zeal  for 
religion  and  zeal  for  trade;  pride  of  empire  and  a 
steadfast  resistance  to  a  restoration  of  the  royal  line 
by  foreign  action.  Like  every  other  great  ruler  in 
intricate  times  and  in  a  situation  without  a  precedent, 
he  was  compelled  to  change  alliances,  weave  fresh  com- 
binations, abandon  to-day  the  ardent  conception  of 
yesterday.  His  grand  professed  object  was  indeed 
fixed ;  the  unity  of  the  Protestant  interest  in  Christen- 
dom, with  England  in  the  van.  Characteristically 
Cromwell  had  settled  this  in  his  mind  by  impulse  and 
the  indwelling  light.  It  proved  to  be  an  object  that 
did  not  happen  to  fit  in  with  the  nature  of  things. 
Unluckily,  in  the  shoals  and  shifting  channels  of  inter- 
national affairs,  the  indwelling  light  is  but  a  treacher- 
ous beacon.  So  far  as  purely  national  aims  were  con- 
cerned, Cromwell's  external  policy  was  in  its  broad 
features  the  policy  of  the  Commonwealth  before  him.^ 

1  See  above  iv,  chap.  5. 

434 


FOREIGN   POLICY  435 

What  went  beyond  purely  national  aims  and  was  in  a 
sense  his  own,  however  imposing,  was  of  questionable 
service  either  to  the  State  or  to  the  Cause. 

At  the  outset  his  policy  was  peace.  The  Common- 
wealth had  gone  to  war  with  the  Dutch,  and  Crom- 
well's first  use  of  his  new  power  was  to  bring  the  con- 
flict to  an  end  (April,  1654).  His  first  boast  to  his 
Parliament  was  that  he  had  made  treaties  not  only 
with  Holland,  but  with  Sweden,  Denmark,  and  Por- 
tugal. These  treaties  were  essentially  commercial,  but 
they  implied  general  amity,  which  in  the  Dutch  case 
did  not  go  very  deep.  "Peace,"  said  Oliver,  using  the 
conventional  formula  since  worn  so  painfully  thread- 
bare on  the  eve  of  every  war  by  men  armed  to  the  teeth, 
"peace  is  desirable  with  all  men,  so  far  as  it  may  be  had 
with  conscience  and  honor."  As  time  went  on,  designs 
shaped  themselves  in  his  mind  that  pointed  not  to  peace 
but  to  energetic  action.  He  went  back  to  the  maritime 
policy  of  the  Long  Parliament.  Even  in  coming  to 
terms  with  the  Dutch  in  1654  he  had  shown  a  severity 
that  indicated  both  a  strong  consciousness  of  mastery, 
and  a  stiff  intention  to  use  it  to  the  uttermost.  This 
second  policy  was  a  trunk  with  two  branches,  a  daring 
ideal  with  a  double  aspect,  one  moral,  the  other  mate- 
rial. The  Protector  intended  to  create  a  Protestant  as- 
cendancy in  continental  Europe,  and  to  assert  the  rights 
and  claims  of  English  ships  and  English  trade  at  sea. 
The  union  of  all  the  Protestant  churches  had  long  been 
a  dream  of  more  than  one  pious  zealot,  but  Cromwell 
crystallized  the  aspirations  after  spiritual  communion 
into  schemes  of  secular  policy.  In  spirit  it  was  not 
very  unlike  the  Arab  invaders  who  centuries  before 
had  swept  into  Europe,  the  sword  in  one  hand  and  the 
Koran  in  the  other,  to  conquer  and  to  convert.  If  he 
had  only  lived,  we  are  told,  his  continental  policy  might 


436  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

have  been  the  rudiment  of  something  great,  the  foun- 
dation of  a  Protestant  and  mihtary  state  that  might 
have  been  as  powerful  as  the  Spanish  monarchy  at  the 
beginning  of  the  century,  and  might  have  opened  for 
England  an  age  if  not  of  happiness,  yet  of  vast  great- 
ness and  ascendancy  (Seeley).  There  is  no  reason  to 
think  that  any  such  sacrifice  of  national  happiness  to 
national  ascendancy  was  ever  a  true  account  of  Oliver 
or  of  his  ideals.  Those  baleful  policies  were  left  for 
the  next  generation  and  Louis  XIV,  the  solar  orb  now 
first  diffusing  its  morning  glow  above  the  horizon. 
Justly  has  it  been  said  (Gardiner)  that  if  Oliver  had 
been  granted  these  twenty  years  more  of  life  that  en- 
thusiastic worshipers  hold  necessary  for  the  success 
of  his  schemes,  a  European  coalition  would  have  been 
formed  against  the  English  Protector  as  surely  as  one 
was  formed  against  Louis  of  France. 

When  peace  was  made  with  the  Dutch  (April,  1654) 
the  government  found  themselves  with  one  hundred 
and  sixty  sail  of  "brave  and  well-appointed  ships  swim- 
ming at  sea."  The  Protector  and  his  council  held 
grave  debate  whether  they  should  be  laid  up  or  em- 
ployed in  some  advantageous  design,  and  against  which 
of  the  two  great  crowns,  France  or  Spain,  that  design 
should  be  directed ;  or  whether  they  would  not  do  bet- 
ter to  sell  their  friendship  to  both  the  powers  for  a 
good  sum  of  money  down.  Lambert  opposed  the  pol- 
icy of  aggression  in  the  Spanish  Indies.  The  scene, 
he  said,  was  too  far  off;  the  difficulties  and  the  cost 
had  not  been  thought  out;  it  would  not  advance  the 
Protestant  cause;  we  had  far  more  important  work 
at  home — the  reform  of  the  law,  the  settlement  of  Ire- 
land, and  other  high  concernments.  Whether  Lam- 
bert stood  alone,  or  held  views  that  were  shared  by 
colleagues  in  the  council,  we  cannot  say.     Cromwell 


FOREIGN    POLICY  437 

argued,  on  the  other  hand,  that  God  had  brought 
them  there  to  consider  the  work  that  they  might  do 
all  over  the  world  as  well  as  at  home,  and  if  they 
waited  for  a  surplus  they  might  as  well  put  off  that 
work  forever.  Surely  the  one  hundred  and  sixty 
ships  were  a  leading  of  Providence.  The  design  would 
cost  little  more  than  laying  up  the  ships,  and  there  was 
a  chance  of  immense  profit.  The  proceedings  of  the 
Spaniard  in  working  his  silver  mines,  his  shipping  and 
transshipping,  his  startings  and  his  stoppages,  his  man- 
agement of  trade-winds  and  ocean-currents  in  bringing 
the  annual  treasure  home — all  these  things  were  con- 
sidered with  as  much  care  as  in  the  old  days,  a  couple 
of  generations  ago,  when  Drake  and  Hawkins  and  the 
rest  carried  on  their  mighty  raids  against  the  colonial 
trade  of  Spain,  and  opened  the  first  spacious  chapter 
in  the  history  of  the  maritime  power  of  England. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  modern  public  law  the  pic- 
ture of  the  Council  of  State,  with  Oliver  at  the  head  of 
the  board  discussing  the  feasibility  of  seizing  the  West 
Indies,  is  like  so  many  hearty  corsairs  with  pistols, 
cutlasses,  and  boarding-caps  resolving  their  plans  in 
the  cabin  of  the  Red  Rover  or  Paul  Jones's  Ranger. 
But  modern  public  law,  such  as  it  was,  did  not  extend 
to  the  Spanish  Main.  It  is  true  that  Spain  refused  to 
grant  freedom  from  the  Inquisition  and  free  sailing 
in  the  West  Indies,  and  these  might  have  been  legiti- 
mate grounds  of  war.  But  it  is  hard  to  contend  that 
they  were  the  real  or  the  only  grounds.  Historians 
may  differ  whether  the  expedition  to  the  West  Indies 
was  a  scheme  for  trade,  territorial  aggrandizement, 
and  naked  plunder  of  Spanish  silver ;  or  only  a  spirited 
Protestant  demonstration  in  force.  Carnal  and  spir- 
itual were  strangely  mingled  in  those  times.  "We  that 
look  to  Zion,"  wrote  a  gallant  Anabaptist  admiral  of 


438  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

the  age,  "should  hold  Christian  communion.  We  have 
all  the  guns  aboard."  Whether  as  substance  of  the 
policy  or  accident,  plunder  followed. 

To  disarm  the  Spanish  king's  suspicion  the  Pro- 
tector wrote  to  assure  him  that  the  despatch  of  the  fleet 
to  the  Mediterranean  implied  no  ill  intent  to  any  ally 
or  friend,  "in  the  number  of  which  we  count  your 
majesty"  (August  5,  1654).  If  the  king  could  have 
heard  the  arguments  at  the  Council  of  State  he  might 
have  thought  that  this  amicable  language  hardly  an- 
swered to  the  facts.  Cromwell's  earliest  move  in  his 
new  line  was  to  despatch  Blake  with  one  strong  fleet  to 
the  Mediterranean  (October),  and  Penn  and  Venables 
(December,  1654)  with  another  to  the  West  Indies. 
In  each  case  the  instructions  were  not  less  explicit 
against  French  ships  than  Spanish.  Blake  alarmed 
France  and  Spain,  menaced  the  Pope,  and  attacked 
the  Barbary  pirates.  The  expedition  against  Saint 
Domingo  was  a  failure;  it  was  ill-found,  ill-conceived, 
and  ill-led.  Before  returning  in  disgrace  the  com- 
manders, hoping  to  retrieve  their  name,  acquired 
the  prize  of  Jamaica.  These  proceedings  brought  the 
Protector  directly  within  the  sphere  of  the  great  Euro- 
pean conflict  of  the  age,  and  drew  England  into  the 
heart  of  the  new  distribution  of  power  in  Europe  that 
marked  the  middle  epoch  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
From  the  Elizabethan  times  conflict  on  the  high  seas 
had  ranked  as  general  reprisal  and  did  not  constitute  1 
a  state  of  war,  nor  did  it  necessarily  now.  The  status 
of  possessions  over  sea  was  still  unfixed.^  Cromwell, 
however,  had  no  right  to  be  surprised  when  Philip 
chose  to  regard  aggression  in  the  Indies  as  justifying 
declaration  of  war  in  Europe.  A  further  consequence 
was  that  Spain  now  began  warmly  to  espouse  the  cause 

1  Corbet's  "Spanish  War,"  1585-87,  viii-ix.— Navy  Record  Society,  1898. 


FOREIGN  POLICY  439 

of  the  exiled  line,  and  in  the  spring  of  1656  PhiHp  IV 
formally  bound  himself  to  definite  measures  for  the 
transport  of  a  Royalist  force  from  Flanders  to  aid  in 
the  English  Restoration. 

The  power  of  Spain  had  begun  to  shrink  with  the 
abdication  of  Charles  V.  Before  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century  Portugal  had  broken  off;  revolt 
had  shaken  her  hold  in  Italy;  Catalonia  was  in  stand- 
ing insurrection;  the  United  Provinces,  had  finally 
achieved  their  independence;  by  the  barbarous  expul- 
sion of  Moors  and  Jews  she  lost  three  millions  of  the 
best  of  her  industrial  population ;  her  maritime  suprem- 
acy was  at  an  end.  Philip  IV,  the  Spanish  sovereign 
from  a  little  time  beiore  the  accession  of  Charles  I  in 
England  to  a  little  time  after  the  restoration  of  Charles 
II,  was  called  by  flatterers  the  Great.  "Like  a  ditch," 
said  Spanish  humor — "the  more  you  dig  away  from  it. 
the  greater  the  ditch."  The  Treaty  of  Westphalia 
(1648),  the  fruit  of  the  toil,  the  foresight,  and  the 
genius  of  Richelieu,  though  others  gathered  it,  weak- 
ened the  power  of  the  Germanic  branch  of  the  House 
of  Hapsburg,  and  Mazarin,  the  second  of  the  two  fa- 
mous cardinals  who  for  forty  years  governed  France, 
was  now  in  the  crisis  of  his  struggle  with  the  Spanish 
branch.  In  this  long  struggle  between  two  states,  each 
torn  by  intestine  dissension  as  well  as  by  an  external 
enemy,  the  power  of  England  was  recognized  as  a 
decisive  factor  after  the  rise  of  the  republic;  and  be- 
fore Cromwell  assumed  the  government  Spain  had 
hastened  to  recognize  the  new  Commonwealth.  Crom- 
well, as  we  have  seen,  long  hesitated  between  Spain 
and  France.  Traditional  policy  pointed  to  France,  for 
though  she  was  predominantly  Catholic,  yet  ever  since 
the  days  of  Francis  I  the  greatest  of  her  statesmen,  in- 
cluding Henrv  IV  and  Richelieu,  had  favored  the  Ger- 


440  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

man  princes  and  the  Protestant  powers,  from  no  special 
care  for  the  reformed  faith,  but  because  the  Protestant 
powers  were  the  adversaries  of  the  emperor,  the  head 
of  the  CathoHc  party  in  Europe. 

Mazarin  endeavored  to  gain  Cromwell  from  the 
moment  of  his  triumphant  return  from  Worcester.  It 
is  the  mark  of  genius  to  be  able  to  satisfy  new  demands 
as  they  arise,  and  to  play  new  parts  with  skill.  Ex- 
pecting to  deal  with  a  rough  soldier  whom  fortune  and 
his  sword  had  brought  to  the  front,  Mazarin  found 
instead  of  this  a  diplomatist  as  wary,  as  supple,  as 
tenacious,  as  dexterous,  as  capable  of  large  views,  as 
incapable  of  dejection,  as  he  was  all  these  things  him- 
self. The  rude  vigor  of  the  English  demands  and  the 
Lord  Protector's  haughty  pretensions  never  irritated 
Mazarin,  of  whom  it  has  been  aptly  said  (Mignet) 
that  his  ambition  raised  him  above  self-love,  and  that 
he  was  so  scientifically  cool  that  even  adversaries  never 
appeared  to  him  in  the  light  of  enemies  to  be  hated, 
but  only  as  obstacles  to  be  moved  or  turned.  It  was 
at  one  time  even  conjectured  idly  enough  that  Maza- 
rin designed  to  marry  one  of  his  nieces  to  the  sec- 
ond son  of  Oliver.  For  years  the  match  went  on  be- 
tween the  Puritan  chief  who  held  the  English  to  be 
the  chosen  people,  and  the  Italian  cardinal  who  de- 
clared that  though  his  language  was  not  French,  his 
heart  was.  Mazarin's  diplomacy  followed  the  vicis- 
situdes of  Cromwell's  political  fortune,  and  the  pur- 
suit of  an  alliance  waxed  hotter  or  cooler,  as  the  Pro- 
tector seemed  likely  to  consolidate  his  power  or  to  let 
it  slip.  Still  both  of  them  were  at  bottom  men  of  di- 
rect common  sense,  and  their  friendship  stood  on  nearly 
as  good  a  basis  for  six  or  seven  years  as  that  which 
for  twenty  years  of  the  next  century  supported  the 
more  fruitful  friendship  between  Sir  Robert  Walpole 


FOREIGN   POLICY  441 

and  Cardinal  Fleury.  A  French  writer,  eminent  both 
as  historian  and  actor  in  state  affairs,  says  of  these 
negotiations  that  it  is  the  supreme  art  of  great  states- 
men to  treat  business  simply  and  with  frankness,  when 
they  know  that  they  have  to  deal  with  rivals  who  will 
not  let  themselves  be  either  duped  or  frightened 
(Guizot).  The  comment  is  just.  Cromwell  was 
harder  and  less  pliant,  and  had  nothing  of  the  caress 
under  which  an  Italian  often  hides  both  sense  and  firm- 
ness. But  each  was  alive  to  the  difificulties  of  the  other, 
and  neither  expected  short  cuts  nor  a  straight  road. 
Mazarin  had  very  early  penetrated  Cromwell's  idea  of 
making  himself  the  guardian  both  of  the  Huguenots  in 
France,  and  of  the  Protestant  interest  throughout 
Europe.  In  the  spring  of  1655  the  massacre  of  the 
Protestants  in  the  Piedmontese  valleys  stirred  a  wave 
of  passion  in  England  that  still  vibrates  in  Milton's 
sonnet,  and  that  Cromwell's  impressive  energy  forced 
on  Europe.  At  no  other  time  in  his  history  did  the 
flame  in  his  own  breast  burn  with  an  intenser  glow. 
The  incident  both  roused  his  deepest  feelings  and  was 
a  practical  occasion  for  realizing  his  policy  of  a  con- 
federation of  Protestant  powers,  with  England  at  the 
head  of  them,  and  France  acting  in  concert.  To  be 
indifferent  to  such  doings,  he  said,  is  a  great  sin,  and 
a  deeper  sin  still  to  be  blind  to  them  from  policy  or 
ambition.  He  associated  his  own  personality  with  the 
case  in  a  tone  of  almost  jealous  directness  that  struck 
a  new  note.  It  was  his  diplomatic  pressure  upon 
France  that  secured  redress,  though  Mazarin,  not  with- 
out craft,  kept  for  himself  a  foremost  place. 

No  English  ruler  has  ever  shown  a  nobler  figure 
than  Cromwell  in  the  case  of  the  Vaudois.  and  he  had 
all  the  highest  impulses  of  the  nation  with  him.  He 
said  to  the  French  ambassador  that  the  woes  of  the 


442  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

poor  Piedmoiitese  went  as  close  to  his  heart  as  if  they 
were  his  own  nearest  kin;  and  he  gave  personal  proof 
of  the  sincerity  of  his  concern  by  a  munificent  contri- 
bution to  the  fund  for  the  rehef  of  the  martyred  popu- 
lation. Never  was  the  great  conception  of  a  powerful 
state  having  duties  along  with  interests  more  mag- 
nanimously realized. 

Now  was  the  time  when  the  Council  of  State  directed 
their  secretary  to  buy  a  new  atlas  for  their  use,  and  to 
keep  the  globe  always  standing  in  the  council  chamber. 
The  Venetian  representative  in  London  in  1655  de- 
clares that  the  court  of  the  Protector  was  the  most 
brilliant  and  most  regarded  in  all  Europe :  six  kings 
had  sent  ambassadors  and  solicited  his  friendship.  The 
glory  of  all  this  in  the  eyes  of  Cromwell,  like  its  inter- 
est in  history,  is  the  height  that  was  thus  reached 
among  the  ruling  and  established  forces  of  Europe  by 
Protestantism.  The  influence  of  France,  says  Ranke. 
had  rescued  Protestantism  from  destruction;  it  was 
through  Cromwell  that  Protestantism  took  up  an  inde- 
pendent position  among  the  powers  of  the  world.  A 
position  so  dazzling  was  a  marvelous  achievement  of 
force  and  purpose,  if  only  the  foundation  had  been 
sounder  and  held  better  promise  of  duration. 

The  war  with  Spain  in  which  England  was  now  in- 
volved by  her  aggression  in  the  West  Indies  roused 
little  enthusiasm  in  the  nation.  The  Parliament  did 
not  disapprove  the  war,  but  showed  no  readiness  to 
vote  the  money.  The  Spanish  trade  in  wine,  oil,  sugar, 
fruit,  cochineal,  silver,  w^as  more  important  to  English 
commerce  than  the  trade  with  France.  It  is  worthy 
of  remark  that  the  Long  Parliament  had  directed  its 
resentment  and  ambition  against  the  Dutch,  and  dis- 
played no  ill  will  to  Spain ;  and  much  the  same  is  true 
of  the  Little  Parliament — and  even  of  Cromwell  him- 


FOREIGN   POLICY  443 

self  in  early  stages.  The  association  of  France  in 
the  mind  of  England  with  Mary  Stuart,  with  the 
queen  of  Charles  I,  and  with  distant  centuries  of  by- 
gone war,  was  some  set-off  to  the  odium  that  sur- 
rounded the  Holy  Office,  the  somber  engine  of  religious 
cruelty  in  the  Peninsula ;  and  the  Spanish  Armada  was 
balanced  in  popular  imagination  by  the  Bartholomew 
Massacre  in  France,  of  which  Burleigh  said  that  it 
was  the  most  horrible  crime  since  the  Crucifixion. 
No  question  of  public  opinion  and  no  difficulties  at  the 
exchequer  prevented  the  vigorous  prosecution  of  the 
war.  Blake,  though  himself  a  republican,  served  the 
Protector  with  the  same  patriotic  energy  and  resource 
that  he  had  given  to  the  Commonwealth  until  after 
the  most  renowned  of  all  his  victories,  and  worn  out 
by  years  of  service  the  hero  died  on  reaching  Ply- 
mouth Sound   (1657). 

By  October  of  1655  Mazarin  had  brought  Cromwell 
so  far  as  to  sign  the  treaty  of  Westminster,  but  the 
treaty  did  not  go  to  the  length  of  alliance.  The  two 
powers  agreed  to  keep  the  peace  among  the  mariners 
of  their  respective  countries,  who  had  in  fact  for  years 
been  in  a  state  of  informal  war ;  to  suppress  obnoxious 
port  dues,  and  duties  of  customs,  and  otherwise  to 
introduce  better  order  into  their  maritime  affairs.  By 
a  secret  article,  political  exiles  were  to  be  sent  out  of 
both  England  and  France.  The  treaty  relieved 
Mazarin  of  his  anxieties  on  the  side  of  England,  and 
brought  him  a  step  nearer  to  his  great  object  of  impos- 
ing peace  upon  Spain. 

It  was  not  until  March  23,  1657,  that  the  next  step 
was  taken,  and  the  Treaty  of  Paris  concluded.  This 
marked  again  a  new  phase  of  the  Protector's  policy,  for 
he  now  at  last  directly  bound  himself  to  active  partici- 
pation in  the  play  of  European  politics,  and  he  acquired 


444  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

a  continental  stronghold.  The  preamble  of  the  new 
treaty  states  with  sonorous  and  edifying  decorum  that 
the  intention  of  the  very  Christian  King  and  the  Lord 
Protector,  moved  by  their  singular  love  of  public  tran- 
quillity, is  to  compel  the  common  enemy  to  allow  the 
Christian  world  at  length  to  enjoy  peace.  England  is 
to  send  six  thousand  men  for  the  siege  of  Gravelines, 
Mardyke,  and  Dunkirk,  as  well  as  a  fleet  to  support 
them  on  the  coast.  When  these  strong  places  have 
been  recovered  from  the  Spanish,  the  two  last-named 
are  to  be  handed  over  to  the  Protector.  Mazarin 
described  the  English  alliance  as  the  best  day's  work 
of  his  life,  and  begged  his  assailants  at  the  Vatican  and 
in  Paris  to  remember  that  the  Protector  had  his  free 
choice  between  France  and  the  cession  of  Dunkirk  on 
the  one  hand,  and  Spain  and  the  cession  of  Calais  on 
the  other,  and  that  only  the  new  treaty  had  averted 
the  choice  that  would  have  been  the  wrong  choice  for 
France. 

The  English  force  was  duly  despatched.  The  young 
French  king  with  lively  curiosity  reviewed  the  iron 
men  by  whom  his  uncle  had  been  vanquished,  de- 
throned, and  put  to  death.  Turenne,  the  famous 
marshal,  a  Protestant  with  the  blood  of  the  House  of 
Orange  in  his  veins,  but  destined  to  a  strange  con- 
version and  to  be  the  instrument  of  one  of  the  great 
public  crimes  of  the  century,  pronounced  the  Crom- 
wellian  contingent  to  be  the  finest  troops  in  the  world. 
After  some  delay  Mardyke  was  taken,  and  then  for- 
mally handed  over  to  the  English  representative  (Oc- 
tober, 1657).  It  was  the  first  foothold  gained  by  Eng- 
land on  continental  soil  since  the  loss  of  Calais  in  the 
time  of  Queen  Mary  a  hundred  years  before.  Dun- 
kirk was  left  until  the  next  season.  The  glory  then 
won  by  English  arms  belongs  to  a  later  page. 


From  the  painting  by  Philippe  de  Champaigne  at  Chantilly. 
CARDINAL  JULES   MAZARIN. 


FOREIGN   POLICY  445 

At  the  end  of  1655,  Cromwell  told  the  agent  from 
the  Great  Elector  that  it  was  not  only  to  rule  over  the 
English  Republic  that  he  had  received  a  call  from  God, 
but  to  introduce  union  and  friendship  among  the 
princes  of  Europe.  Cool  observers  from  Venice,  who 
knew  thoroughly  the  ground  that  the  Protector  knew 
so  little,  predicted  in  1655  that  his  vast  and  ill-con- 
ceived designs  must  end  in  spreading  confusion  all 
over  Christendom.  These  designs  made  little  prog- 
ress. The  Great  Elector  remonstrated.  He  warned 
Cromwell's  ambassador  that  in  the  present  state  of 
Europe  the  interest  of  Protestantism  itself  required 
them  to  follow  safe  rather  than  specious  counsels, 
and  to  be  content  with  trying  to  secure  freedom  of 
conscience  by  treaty.  Instead  of  a  grand  Protestant 
league  against  the  German  branch  of  the  House  of 
Austria,  what  Oliver  saw,  with  perplexity  and  anger, 
was  violent  territorial  conflict  among  the  Baltic  Prot- 
estant powers  themselves.  The  Swedish  king,  the 
Danish  king,  the  Great  Elector,  were  all  in  hot  quar- 
rel with  one  another — the  quarrel  in  which  Charles  X, 
grandson  of  Gustavus  Adolphus,  and  grandfather  of 
Charles  XII,  astounded  Europe  by  marching  twenty 
thousand  men  across  some  thirteen  miles  of  frozen  sea 
on  his  path  to  territorial  conquest.  The  dream  of 
Charles,  from  whom  Cromwell  hoped  so  much,  was  not 
religious,  but  the  foundation  of  a  new  Gothic  Empire. 
Anabaptists  were  not  more  disappointing  at  home  than 
Vv'ere  the  northern  powers  abroad.  Even  the  Protes- 
tant cantons  of  Switzerland  did  not  help  him  to  avenge 
the  barbarities  in  Piedmont.  When  a  new  emperor 
came  to  be  chosen,  only  three  of  the  electors  were  Prot- 
estant, and  one  of  the  Protestant  three  actually  voted 
for  the  Austrian  Leopold.  The  presence  of  Crom- 
well's troops  in  Flanders  naturally  filled  the  Dutch  with 


446  .OLIVER  CROMWELL 

uneasiness,  and  inclined  one  Protestant  republic  again 
to  take  arms  against  another.  Finally,  to  hasten  the 
decline  of  Spain  was  directly  to  prepare  for  the  ascen- 
dancy of  France;  of  a  country,  that  is  to  say,  where  all 
the  predominant  influences  were  Catholic  and  would 
inevitably  revive  in  unrestrained  force  as  soon  as  the 
monarchy  was  once  secure. 

Bolingbroke  mentions  a  tradition  of  which  he  had 
heard  from  persons  who  lived  in  those  days,  and  whom 
he  supposes  to  have  got  it  from  Thurloe,  that  Crom- 
well was  in  treaty  with  Spain  and  ready  to  turn  his 
arms  against  France  at  the  moment  when  he  died.  So 
soon,  it  is  inferred,  did  he  perceive  the  harm  that  would 
be  done  to  the  general  interest  of  Europe  by  that 
French  preponderance  which  his  diplomacy  had  made 
possible  and  his  arms  had  furthered.  But,  they  say, 
"to  do  great  things  a  man  must  act  as  if  he  will  never 
die,"  and  if  Cromwell  had  only  lived,  Louis  XIV 
would  never  have  dared  to  revoke  the  edict  of  Nantes. 
This  is  problematical  indeed.  If  the  view  ascribed 
to  Cromwell  by  some  modern  admirers  was  really 
his,  it  must  rank  among  the  contradictory  chimeras 
that  sometimes  haunt  great  minds.  Suppose  that 
Cromwell's  scheme  of  Protestant  ascendancy  in  Eu- 
rope had  been  less  hard  to  reconcile  with  actual  con- 
ditions than  it  was,  how  was  he  to  execute  it?  How 
was  the  conversion  of  England  into  a  crusading 
military  state,  and  the  vast  increase  of  taxation  neces- 
sary to  support  such  a  state,  calculated  to  give 
either  popularity  or  strength  to  a  government  so  pre- 
carious and  so  unstable,  that  after  five  years  of  experi- 
ment upon  experiment  it  could  exist  neither  with  a 
Parliament  nor  without  one?  It  was  the  cost  of  the 
war  with  Spain  that  prevented  Oliver  from  being  able 
to  help  the  Protestant  against  the  Catholic  cantons  in 


FOREIGN   POLICY  447 

Switzerland,  zealous  as  were  his  sympathies.  And 
one  ground  of  his  anxiety  to  possess  Dunkirk  was 
trade  antagonism  to  the  Dutch,  who  were  at  least  as 
good  Protestants  as  the  English.  Oliver's  ideal  was 
not  without  a  grandeur  of  its  own,  but  it  was  incongru- 
ous in  its  parts,  and  prolonged  trial  of  it  could  only 
have  made  its  unworkableness  more  manifest. 

"You  have  accounted  yourselves  happy,"  said  the 
Protector  in  his  speech  in  January,  1658,  "in  being  en- 
vironed by  a  great  ditch  from  all  the  world  beside. 
Truly  you  will  not  be  able  to  keep  your  ditch  nor  your 
shipping  unless  you  turn  your  ships  and  shipping  into 
troops  of  horse  and  companies  of  foot,  and  fight  to 
defend  yourselves  on  terra  firma."  The  great  Eliza- 
beth, like  Lambert  at  Cromwell's  own  council-table, 
believed  in  the  policy  of  the  ditch  and  "the  felicity  of 
full  coffers,"  and  she  left  a  contented  people  and  a 
settled  realm.  Cromwell,  notwithstanding  all  the 
glory  of  his  imperial  vision  of  England  as  a  fighting 
continental  state,  was  in  fact  doing  his  best  to  prevent 
either  content  or  the  settlement  of  his  own  rule  in  the 
island  whence  alone  all  this  splendor  could  first  radiate. 

The  future  growth  of  vast  West  Indian  interests,  of 
which  the  seizure  of  Jamaica  was  the  initial  step,  has 
made  it  possible  to  depict  Cromwell  as  the  conscious 
author  of  a  great  system  of  colonial  expansion.  What 
is  undoubtedly  true  is  that  such  ideas  were  then  alive. 
Nor  had  the  famous  traditions  of  the  Elizabethans 
died.  The  Commonwealth  from  the  time  of  its  birth, 
while  Cromwell  was  still  engaged  in  the  reduction  of 
Scotland,  had  shown  the  same  vigor  in  the  case  of  in- 
surgent colonies  as  against  royalist  foes  in  waters 
nearer  home,  or  against  the  forces  of  distraction  in 
the  two  outlying  kingdoms.  The  Navigation  Act, 
which  belongs  to  the  same  date,  has  been  truly  de- 


448  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

scribed   as   designed   among  other   nearer  objects   to  _ 

strengthen  the  hold  of  England  on  her  distant  posses-  ■ 

sions,  though  it  is  perhaps  a  reading  of  modern  phrases  ■ 

into  old  events  to  say  that  the  statesmen  of  the  Re- 
public deliberately  designed  to  show  that  England  was 
to  be  not  merely  a  European  power,  but  the  center  of  a 
world-wide  empire.  Be  this  as  it  may,  Cromwell's  col- 
onial policy  was  that  of  his  predecessors,  as  it  was  that 
of  the  statemen  who  followed  him.  He  watched  the 
colonies  in  a  rational  and  conciliatory  spirit,  and  at- 
tended with  energy  to  the  settlement  of  Jamaica, 
though  some  of  his  expedients  were  too  hurried  to  be 
wise,  for  with  the  energetic  temperament  we  have  to 
take  its  drawbacks.  For  his  time  little  came  of  his 
zealous  hopes  for  the  West  Indies,  and  English  mer- 
chants thought  bitterly  on  their  heavy  losses  in  the 
Spanish  trade  for  which  a  barren  acquisition  seemed 
the  only  recompense.  Colonial  expansion  came  in 
spite  of  the  misgivings  of  interested  traders  or  the 
passing  miscalculations  of  statesmen. 

It  had  its  spring  in  the  abiding  demands  of  national 
circumstance,  in  the  continuous  action  of  economic 
necessities  upon  a  national  character  of  incomparable 
energy  and  adventure.  Such  a  policy  was  not,  and 
could  not  be  the  idea  of  one  man,  or  the  mark  of  a 
single  generation. 


CHAPTER  IX 

GROWING    EMBARRASSMENTS 

IN  France,  a  century  and  a  quarter  after  Cromwell's 
day,  they  said  that  every  clerk  who  had  read  Rous- 
seau's "New  Heloisa,"  every  schoolmaster  who  had 
translated  ten  pages  of  Livy.  every  journalist  who 
knew  by  heart  the  sophisms  of  the  Social  Contract,  was 
sure  that  he  had  found  the  philosopher's  stone  and  was 
instantly  ready  to  frame  a  constitution.  Our  brave 
fathers  of  the  Cromwellian  times  were  almost  as  rash. 
There  is  no  branch  of  political  industry  that  men  ap- 
proach with  hearts  so  light,  and  yet  that  leaves  them 
at  the  end  so  dubious  and  melancholy,  as  the  concoc- 
tion of  a  Second  Chamber.  Cromwell  and  his  Parlia- 
ment set  foot  on  this  pons  asinonim  of  democracy 
without  a  suspicion  of  its  dangers. 

The  Protector  made  it  a  condition  at  his  conferences, 
in  the  spring  of  1657,  that  if  he  was  to  go  on  there  must 
be  other  persons  interposed  between  him  and  the  House 
of  Commons.  To  prevent  tumultuary  and  popular 
spirits  he  sought  a  screen.  It  was  granted  that  he 
should  name  another  House.  Nothing  seemed  simpler 
or  more  plausible,  and  yet  he  was  steering  straight 
upon  reefs  and  shoals.  A  mistake  here,  said  Thur- 
loe,  will  be  like  war  or  marriage ;  it  admits  of  no  re- 
pentance.    If  the  old  House  of  Lords  had  been  alive, 

29  449 


450  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

and  had  also  by  miracle  been  sincerely  in  the  humor 
to  work  for  national  pacification,  to  restore  it  might 
have  tended  to  union.  As  it  was,  to  call  out  of  empty 
space  an  artificial  House,  without  the  hold  upon  men's 
minds  of  history  and  ancient  association,  without  de- 
fined powers,  without  marked  distinction  of  persons 
or  interests,  and  then  to  try  to  make  it  an  effective 
screen  against  an  elected  House  to  whose  assent  it  owed 
its  own  being,  was  not  to  promote  union  but  directly 
to  provoke  division  and  to  intensify  it.  Confident  in 
his  own  good  faith,  and  with  a  conviction  that  to  frame 
laws  in  view  of  contingent  possibilities  has  a  tincture 
of  impiety  in  it  as  a  distrust  of  Providence,  Cromwell 
never  thought  out  the  scheme;  he  left  it  in  the  Humble • 
Petition  and  Advice  with  leaks,  chinks,  and  wide  aper- 
tures that  might  horrify  the  newest  apprentice  of  a 
Parliamentary  draughtsman.  The  natural  result  fol- 
lowed. The  new  House  was  not  to  be  more  than 
seventy  in  number  nor  less  than  forty,  to  be  named  by 
the  Protector  and  approved  by  the  House  of  Commons ; 
a  place  in  it  was  not  hereditary ;  and  it  received  no 
more  impressive  title  than  the  Other  House.  Crom- 
well selected  a  very  respectable  body  of  some  sixty 
men,  beginning  with  his  two  sons,  Richard  and  Henry, 
and  including  good  lawyers,  judges,  generals,  and  less 
than  a  dozen  of  the  old  nobles.  Some  of  the  ablest, 
like  Lockhart  and  Monk  and  Henry  Cromwell,  were 
absent  from  England,  and  all  of  the  old  nobles  save 
five  held  aloof.  Like  smaller  reformers  since,  Crom- 
well had  never  decided,  to  begin  with,  whether  to  make 
his  lords  strong  or  weak :  strong  enough  to  curb  the 
Commons,  and  yet  weak  enough  for  the  Commons  to 
curb  them.  The  riddle  seems  unanswered  to  this  day. 
He  forgot  too  that  by  removing  so  many  men  of  expe- 
rience and  capacity  away  from  the  Commons  he  was 


GROWIxNG   EMBARRASSAIEXTS        451 

impairing-  the  strength  of  his  own  government  at  the 
central  point  of  attack.  Attack  was  certain,  for  on  the 
opening  of  the  second  session  of  his  second  Parhament 
(January  20,  1658)  the  ninety  members  whom  he  had 
shut  out  from  the  first  session  were  to  be  admitted. 
Some  of  them,  after  much  consideration,  deemed  it  their 
duty  "to  leave  that  tyrant  and  his  packed  convention  to 
stand  upon  his  sandy  foundation,"  but  the  majority 
seem  to  have  thought  otherwise  and  they  reappeared. 

The  looseness  of  the  constituting  document  made  the 
business  of  an  opposition  easy,  if  it  were  inclined  to 
action.  One  clause  undoubtedly  enacted  that  no  stand- 
ing law  could  be  altered  and  no  new  law  made  except  by 
act  of  Parliament.  As  a  previous  clause  had  defined 
a  Parliament  to  consist  of  two  Houses,  this  seemed  to 
confer  on  the  Other  House  a  coordinate  share  in  legis- 
lation. On  the  other  hand,  the  only  section  dealing 
with  the  specific  attributes  of  the  new  House  regards  it 
as  a  court  of  civil  and  criminal  appeal,  and  the  oppo- 
sition argued  that  the  Other  House  was  to  be  that  and 
nothing  else.  It  was  here,  and  on  the  question  of 
government  by  a  single  House,  that  the  ground  of 
party  battle  was  chosen.  Cromwell's  enemies  had  a 
slight  majority.  After  the  debate  had  gone  on  for 
four  days,  he  addressed  them  in  an  urgent  remon- 
strance. He  dwelt  on  the  alarming  state  of  Europe, 
the  combinations  against  the  Protestant  interest,  the 
discord  within  that  interest  itself,  the  danger  of  a  Span- 
ish invasion  to  restore  the  Stuarts,  the  deadly  perils  of 
disunion  at  home. 

The  House  was  deaf.  For  ten  days  more  the  stub- 
born debate  on  the  name  and  place  of  the  Other  House 
went  on.  Stealthy  attempts  were  made  to  pervert  the 
army  in  the  interest  of  a  republican  revival.  As  in  the 
old    times    of   the   Long    Parliament,    the    opposition 


452  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

worked  up  petitions  in  the  city.  These  petitions  were 
designed  by  the  malcontents  to  serve  as  texts  for  mo- 
tions and  debates  in  favor  of  returning  to  a  pure 
commonwealth.  On  the  other  wing  there  were  some 
in  the  Parliament  who  even  held  commissions  from 
the  king.  The  Protector,  well  aware  of  all  that  was 
on  foot,  at  last  could  endure  it  no  more.  In  opening 
the  session  he  had  referred  to  his  infirmity  of  health, 
and  the  labor  of  wrestling  with  the  difficulties  of  his 
place,  as  Maidstone  says,  "drank  up  his  spirits,  of 
which  his  natural  constitution  yielded  a  vast  stock." 
Royalists  consoled  themselves  with  stories  that  he  was 
not  well  in  mind  or  body;  that  his  mutinous  officers 
vexed  him  strangely;  and  that  he  was  forced  to  take 
opium  to  make  him  sleep.  The  story  of  the  circum- 
stances of  the  last  dealings  of  Oliver  with  a  Parliament 
was  related  as  follows :  "A  mysterious  porter  brought 
letters  addressed  to  the  Protector:  Thurloe  directed 
Maidstone,  the  steward,  to  take  them  to  his  Highness. 
The  door  of  the  apartment  was  closed,  but  on  his 
knocking  very  hard,  Cromwell  cried  out  angrily  to 
know  who  was  there.  Presently  he  unbarred  the  door, 
took  the  letters,  and  shut  himself  in  again.  By-and- 
by  he  sent  for  Whalley  and  Desborough,  who  were 
to  be  in  command  of  the  guard  that  night.  Lie  asked 
them  if  they  had  heard  no  news,  and  on  their  saying- 
no,  he  again  asked  if  they  had  not  heard  of  a  petition. 
He  bade  them  go  to  Westminster.  On  their  way  they 
heard  some  of  the  soldiers  using  disaffected  words. 
This  they  immediately  reported,  and  Oliver  told  them 
to  change  the  ordering  of  the  guards  for  the  night.  The 
next  morning  (February  4),  before  nine  o'clock  he 
called  for  his  breakfast,  telling  Thurloe,  who  chanced 
to  be  ill,  that  he  would  go  to  the  House,  at  which  Thur- 
loe wondered  why  his  Highness  resolved  so  suddenly. 


GROWING   EMBARRASSMENTS        453 

He  did  not  tell  him  why,  but  he  was  resolved  to  go. 
"And  when  he  had  his  meal,  he  withdrew  himself, 
and  went  the  back  way,  intending  alone  to  have  gone 
by  water;  but  the  ice  was  so  as  he  could  not;  then  he 
came  the  foot  way,  and  the  first  man  of  the  guard  he 
saw  he  commanded  him  to  press  the  nearest  coach, 
which  he  did,  with  but  two  horses  in  it,  and  so  he  went 
with  not  above  four  footmen,  and  about  five  or  six  of 
the  guards  to  the  House ;  after  which,  retiring  into  the 
withdrawing  room,  drank  a  cup  of  ale  and  ate  a  piece 
of  toast.  Then  the  Lord  Fiennes,  near  to  him,  asked 
his  Highness  what  he  intended ;  he  said  he  would  dis- 
solve the  House.  Upon  which  the  Lord  Fleetwood 
said,  'I  beseech  your  Highness  consider  first  well  of  it ; 
it  is  of  great  consequence.'  He  replied,  'You  are  a 
milksop :  by  the  living  God  I  will  dissolve  the  House.' 
( Some  say  he  iterated  this  twice,  and  some  say  it  was, 
'As  the  Lord  liveth.')" 

His  speech  was  for  once  short  and  concentrated,  and 
he  did  not  dissemble  his  anger.  "What  is  like  to 
come  upon  this,"  he  concluded,  "the  enemy  being  ready 
to  invade  us,  but  our  present  blood  and  confusion? 
And  if  this  be  so,  I  do  assign  it  to  this  cause :  your  not 
assenting  to  what  you  did  invite  me  to  by  your  Petition 
and  Advice,  as  that  which  might  prove  the  settlement 
of  the  nation.  And  if  this  be  the  end  of  your  sitting, 
and  this  be  your  carriage,  I  think  it  high  time  that  an 
end  be  put  to  your  sitting.  And  I  so  dissolve  this 
Parliament.  And  let  God  be  judge  between  you  and 
me."  To  which  end,  says  one  report,  many  of  the 
Commons  cried  Amen. 

Cromwell's  government  had  gone  through  six  stages 
in  the  five  years  since  the  revolution  of  1653.  The 
first  was  a  dictatorship  tempered  by  a  military  council. 
Second,  wdiile  wielding  executive  power  as  lord-gen- 


454  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

eral,  he  called  a  Parliamentary  convention.  Third, 
the  convention  vanished,  and  the  soldiers  installed  him 
as  Protector  under  the  Instrument.  Fourth,  the  sys- 
tem under  the  Instrument  broke  down,  and  for  months 
the  Protectorate  again  meant  the  personal  rule  of  the 
head  of  the  army.  Fifth,  the  rule  of  the  major-gen- 
erals broke  down,  and  was  followed  by  a  kind  of  con- 
stitutional monarchy.  Sixth,  the  monarch  and  the 
Parliament  quarreled,  and  the  constitution  broke 
down.  This  succession  of  expedients  and  experi- 
ments may  have  been  inevitable  in  view  of  the  fun- 
damental dislocation  of  things  after  rebellion  and 
war.  But  in  face  of  such  a  spectacle  and  such  results 
it  is  hardly  possible  to  claim  for  the  triumphant  soldier 
a  high  place  in  the  history  of  original  and  creative 
statesmanship. 

The  Protector  next  flung  himself  into  the  work  of 
tracking  out  the  conspirators.  That  the  design  of  a 
Spanish  invasion  to  fit  in  with  domestic  insurrection 
would  hopelessly  miscarry  may  have  been  probable. 
That  the  fidelity  of  the  army  could  be  relied  upon,  he 
hardly  can  have  doubted.  But  a  ruler  bearing  all  the 
responsibilities  of  a  cause  and  a  nation  cannot  afford 
to  trust  to  the  chapter  of  accidents.  We  who  live  two- 
centuries  off  cannot  pretend  to  measure  the  extent  of 
the  danger,  but  nobody  can  read  the  depositions  of 
witnesses  in  the  cases  of  the  spring  of  1658  without 
feeling  the  presence  of  mischief  that  even  the  most 
merciful  of  magistrates  was  bound  to  treat  as  grave. 
The  nation  showed  no  resentment  against  treasonable 
designs;  it  was  not  an  ordered  and  accepted  govern- 
ment against  which  they  were  directed.  This  did  not 
lighten  the  necessity  of  striking  hard  at  what  Henry 
Cromwell  called  these  recurring  anniversary  mischiefs. 
Examples  were  made  in  the  persons  of  Sir  Henry 


From  the  original  portrait  by  Cornelius  Jan^sen  at  Chequers  Court,  by  permission 
of  Mrs.  Frankland-Russell-Astley. 

MARY   CROMWELL   (l.ADY   FAUCONBKRG). 


GROWING   EMBARRASSMENTS        455 

Slingsby,  Dr.  Hewitt,  and  some  obscurer  persons. 
Hewitt  was  an  Episcopal  clergyman,  an  acceptable 
preacher  to  those  of  his  own  way  of  thinking,  a  fervent 
Royalist :  the  evidence  is  strong  that  he  was  deep  in 
Stuart  plots.  Slingsby's  case  is  less  clear.  That  he 
was  a  Royalist  and  a  plotter  is  certain,  but  the  evidence 
suggests  that  there  was  some  ugly  truth  in  what  he 
said  on  his  trial  that  he  was  ''trepanned"  by  agents  of 
the  government  who,  while  he  was  in  their  custody  at 
Hull,  extracted  his  secrets  from  him  by  pretending  to 
favor  his  aims.  The  high  courts  of  justice  before 
which  these  and  other  prisoners  of  the  same  stamp  w^ere 
arraigned  did  not  please  steady  lawyers  like  White- 
locke,  but  the  Protector  thought  them  better  fitted  to 
terrify  evil-doers  than  an  ordinary  trial  at  common 
law.  Though  open  to  all  the  objections  against  special 
criminal  tribunals,  the  high  courts  of  justice  during 
Cromwell's  reign  were  conducted  with  temper  and 
fairness :  they  always  had  good  lawyers  among  them, 
and  the  size  of  the  court,  never  composed  of  less  than 
thirty  members,  gave  it  something  of  the  quality  of 
trial  by  jury.  It  is  said  that  Hewitt  had  privately  per- 
formed the  service  according  to  the  Anglican  rite  at 
the  recent  marriage  of  Mary  Cromwell  with  Lord 
Fauconberg,  and  that  the  bride  interceded  for  his 
life,  but  the  Protector  was  immovable,  and  both 
Slingsby  and  Hewitt  were  sent  to  the  scafifold  (June, 
1658).  Plots  were  once  more  for  a  season  driven 
underground.  But  it  is  impossible  that  the  grim  arid 
bloody  circumstances  of  their  suppression  could  have 
helped  the  popularity  of  the  government. 

Meanwhile  the  Protectorate  was  sinking  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  bog  of  financial  difficulty.  ''We  are  so 
out  at  the  heels  here,"  Thurloe  says  in  April,  "that  I 
know  not  what  we  shall  do  for  money."     At  the  end 


456  OLIVER  CROM\\^ELL 

of  the  month  he  reports  that  the  clamor  for  money 
both  from  the  sea  and  land  is  such  that  they  can  scarce 
be  borne.  Henry  Cromwell,  now  lord  deputy  in  Ire- 
land, is  in  the  last  extremity.  Hunger,  he  says,  will 
break  through  stone  walls,  and  if  they  are  kept  so  bare, 
they  will  soon  have  to  cease  all  industry  and  sink  to 
the  brutish  practices  of  the  Irish  themselves.  Fleet- 
w^ood  is  sure  they  spend  as  little  public  money  except 
for  public  needs  as  any  government  ever  did ;  but  their 
expenses,  he  admits,  were  extraordinary,  and  could  not 
with  safety  be  retrenched.  In  June  things  are  still 
declared  to  be  at  a  standstill.  The  sums  required  could 
not  possibly  be  supplied  without  a  Parliament,  and  in 
that  direction  endless  perils  lurked.  Truly,  I  think, 
says  Thurloe,  that  nothing  but  some  unexpected  Provi- 
dence can  remove  the  present  difficulties,  which  the 
Lord,  it  may  be,  will  afford  us,  if  He  hath  thoughts  of 
peace  toward  us.  By  July  things  are  even  worse, 
"our  necessities  much  increasing  every  day." 

Cromwell  threw  the  deliberations  on  the  subject  of 
a  Parliament  on  to  a  junto  of  nine.  What  was  the 
Parliament  to  do  when  it  should  meet?  How  was  the 
government  to  secure  itself  against  Cavaliers  on  one 
hand,  and  Commonwealth  ultras  on  the  other?  For 
the  Cavaliers  some  of  the  junto  suggested  an  oath  of 
abjuration  and  a  fine  of  half  their  estates.  This  was 
not  very  promising.  The  Cavaliers  might  take  the 
oath,  and  yet  not  keep  it.  To  punish  Cavaliers  who 
were  innocent,  for  the  sins  of  the  plotters  would  be 
recognized  as  flagrantly  unjust;  and  as  many  of  the 
old  Cavaliers  were  now  dead,  it  was  clearly  impolitic 
by  such  injustice  to  turn  their  sons  into  irreconcilables. 
The  only  thing  in  the  whole  list  of  constitutional  diffi- 
culties on  which  the  junto  could  agree  was  that  the 


GROWING   EMBARRASSMENTS        457 

Protector  should  name  his  successor.  If  this  close 
council  could  only  come  to  such  meager  conclusion 
upon  the  vexed  questions  inseparable  from  that  revi- 
sion which,  as  everybody  knew,  must  be  faced,  what 
gain  could  be  expected  from  throwing  the  same  ques- 
tions on  the  floor  of  a  vehemently  distracted  Parlia- 
ment? There  is  reason  even  for  supposing  that  in  his 
straits  Oliver  sounded  some  of  the  republicans,  includ- 
ing men  of  such  hard  grit  as  Ludlow  and  Vane.  Henry 
Cromwell  was  doubtful  and  suspicious  of  any  such 
combination,  and  laid  down  the  wholesome  principle, 
in  party  concerns,  that  one  that  runs  along  with  you 
may  more  easily  trip  up  the  heels  than  he  that  wrestles 
with  you.  We  go  wrong  in  political  judgment  if  we 
leave  out  rivalries,  heart-burnings,  personalities,  even 
among  leading  men  and  great  men.  History  is  apt 
to  smooth  out  these  rugosities ;  hero-worship  may 
smooth  them  out;  time  hides  them;  but  they  do  their 
work.  Less  trace  of  personal  jealousy  or  cabal  is  to 
be  found  in  the  English  rebellion  than  in  almost  any 
other  revolutionary  movement  in  history,  and  Crom- 
well himself  was  free  from  these  disfigurements  of 
public  life.  Of  Lambert,  fine  soldier  and  capable  man 
as  he  was,  we  cannot  afiirm  so  much,  and  he  had 
confederates.  Henry  Cromwell's  clear  sight  never 
failed  him,  and  he  perceived  that  the  discussion  was 
idle.  "Have  you,  after  all,"  he  asks  Thurloe,  "got  any 
settlement  for  men  to  swear  to  ?  Does  not  your  peace 
depend  upon  his  Highness'  life,  and  upon  his  peculiar 
skill  and  faculty,  and  personal  interest  in  the  army  as 
now  modelled  and  commanded?  I  say,  beneath  the 
immediate  hand  of  God,  if  I  know  anything  of  the 
affairs  of  England,  there  is  no  other  reason  why  we  are 
not  in  blood  at  this  dav."     In  other  words,  no  settle- 


458 


OLIVER  CROMWELL 


ment  was  even  now  in  sight,  and  none  was  possible  if 
Cromwell's  mighty  personality  should  be  withdrawn. 
This  judgment  from  such  a  man  is  worth  a  whole 
chapter  of  modern  dissertation.  It  was  the  whole 
truth,  to  none  known  better  than  to  the  Lord  Protector 
himself. 


i 


CHAPTER  X 


THE    CLOSE 


ONE  parting  beam  of  splendor  broke  through  the 
clouded  skies.  The  Protector,  in  conformity 
with  the  revised  treaty  made  with  France  in  March 
(1658),  had  despatched  six  thousand  foot,  as  well  as  a 
naval  contingent,  as  auxiliaries  to  the  French  in  an 
attack  by  land  and  sea  upon  Dunkirk.  The  famous 
Turenne  was  in  general  command  of  the  allied  forces, 
with  Lockhart  under  his  orders  at  the  head  of  the  Eng- 
lish six  thousand.  Dramatic  elements  were  not  want- 
ing. Cardinal  Mazarin  was  on  the  ground,  and  Louis 
XIV,  then  a  youth  of  twenty,  was  learning  one  of  his 
early  lessons  in  the  art  of  war.  In  the  motley  Spanish 
forces  confronting  the  French  king  were  his  cousins 
the  Duke  of  York  and  the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  the  two 
sons  of  Charles  I,  and  like  Louis  himself  grandsons  of 
Henry  of  Navarre.  Along  w^ith  the  English  princes 
were  the  brigades  of  Irish  and  Royalist  English  who 
had  followed  the  fortunes  of  the  exiled  line,  and  who 
now  once  more  faced  the  ever-victorious  Ironsides. 
Cromwell  sent  Fauconberg.  his  new  son-in-law,  to 
Calais  with  letters  of  salutation  and  compliment  to 
the  French  king  and  his  minister,  accompanied  by  a 
present  of  superb  English  horses.  The  emissary  was 
received   with   extraordinary   courtesies   alike   by   the 

459 


46o  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

monarch  and  the  cardinal,  and  the  latter  even  conducted 
him  by  the  hand  to  the  outer  door,  a  compliment  that 
he  had  never  before  been  known  to  pay  to  the  ambassa- 
dor of  any  crowned  head. 

The  Battle  of  the  Dunes  (June  14)  was  fought 
among  the  sandhills  of  Dunkirk,  and  ended  in  the  de- 
struction of  the  Spanish  army.  "The  English,"  says 
a  French  eye-w4tness,  "pike  in  hand,  charged  with  such 
stubborn  vigor  the  eight  Spanish  battalions  posted  on 
the  high  ground  of  the  downs,  that  in  face  of  musketry 
fire  and  stout  resistance  the  English  drove  them  head- 
long from  their  position."  These  were  the  old  or 
natural  Spaniards  as  distinguished  from  Walloon  and 
German,  and  were  the  flower  of  the  Spanish  army. 
Their  position  was  so  strong  that  Lockhart  at  first 
thought  it  desperate;  and  when  all  was  over  he  called 
it  the  hottest  dispute  that  he  had  ever  seen.  The  two 
Stuart  princes  are  said  to  have  forgotten  their  wrongs 
at  the  hand  of  the  soldier  who  had  trained  that  invin- 
cible band,  and  to  have  felt  a  thrill  of  honorable  pride 
at  the  gallantry  of  their  countrymen.  Turenne's  vic- 
tory was  complete,  and  in  a  week  Dunkirk  surrendered. 
Then  came  a  bitter  moment  for  the  French.  The  king 
received  Dunkirk  from  the  Spaniards,  only  to  hand 
over  the  keys  according  to  treaty  to  the  English,  and 
Lockhart  at  once  took  possession  in  the  name  of  the 
Lord  Protector.  Mazarin  knew  the  price  he  was  pay- 
ing to  be  tremendous.  The  French  historians^  think 
that  he  foresaw^  that  English  quarrels  would  one  day 
be  sure  to  enable  France  to  recover  it  by  sword  or 
purse,  and  so  in  time  they  did.  Meanwhile  the  Iron- 
sides gave  the  sage  and  valiant  Lockhart  trouble  by 
their  curiosity  about  the  churches :  they  insisted  on 
keeping  their  heads  covered;  some  saw  in  the  sacred 

1  Bourelly,  p.  261.     Cheruel  Hist,  de  F7-ance  sons  Mazarin,  iii.  292-5. 


From  the  original  portrait  by  John  Riley,  by  permission  of 
the  Rev.  T.  Ctoir.well  Bush. 

FRANCES   CROMWELL   (.MRS.  RICH,  AFTERW.\RD   LADY   RUSSELL). 


THE  CLOSE  461 

treasures  good  material  for  loot;  and  one  of  them 
nearly  caused  a  violent  affray  by  lighting  his  pipe  at 
a  candle  on  the  altar  where  a  priest  was  saying  Mass. 
But  Lockhart  was  strict,  and  discipline  prevailed. 
Hardly  less  embarrassing  than  want  of  reverence  in  the 
soldiery  were  the  long  discourses  with  which  Hugh 
Peters,  the  Boanerges  of  the  military  pulpit,  would 
fain  have  regaled  his  singular  ally,  the  omnipotent 
cardinal.  Louis  XIV  despatched  a  mission  of  much 
magnificence  bearing  to  Cromwell  a  present  of  a  sword 
of  honor  with  a  hilt  adorned  with  precious  gems.  In 
after  days  when  Louis  had  become  the  arch-persecutor 
and  the  shining  champion  of  divine  right,  the  pride  of 
the  Most  Christian  King  was  mortified  by  recollecting 
the  profuse  compliments  that  he  had  once  paid  to  the 
impious  regicide. 

The  glory  of  their  ruler's  commanding  place  in 
Europe  gratified  English  pride,  but  it  brought  no  com- 
posure into  the  confused  and  jarring  scene.  It  rather 
gave  new  nourishment  to  the  root  of  evil.  "The 
Lord  is  pleased  to  do  wonderfully  for  his  Highness," 
said  Thurloe  after  Dunkirk,  "and  to  bless  him  in  his 
affairs  beyond  expression,"  but  he  speedily  reverts 
to  the  grinding  necessity  of  putting  affairs  on  some 
better  footing.  Men  with  cool  heads  perceived  that 
though  continental  acquisitions  might  strengthen  our 
security  in  one  way,  yet  by  their  vast  cost  they  must 
add  heavily  to  the  financial  burdens  that  constituted 
the  central  weakness  of  the  Protectorate,  and  pre- 
vented the  real  settlement  of  a  governing  system. 
For  the  Protector  himself  the  civil  difficulties  against 
which  he  had  for  seven  years  with  such  manful  faith 
and  heroic  persistency  contended  were  now  soon  to 
come  to  an  end.  He  told  his  last  Parliament  that  he 
looked  upon  himself  as  one  set  on  a  watch-tower  to 


462  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

see  what  may  be  for  the  good  of  these  nations,  and 
what  may  be  for  the  preventing  of  evil.  The  hour  of 
the  dauntless  sentinel's  relief  soon  sounded.  Death 
had  already  this  year  stricken  his  household  more  than 
one  sore  blow.  Rich,  who  had  married  Frances 
Cromwell  in  November,  died  in  February.  Elizabeth 
Claypole  lost  her  youngest  son  in  June.  All  through 
the  summer  Elizabeth  herself  was  torn  by  a  cruel 
malady,  and  in  August  she  died  at  Hampton  Court. 
For  many  days  her  father,  insensible  even  to  the  cares 
of  public  business,  watched  with  ceaseless  devotion  by 
the  bedside  of  the  dearest  of  his  children.  He  was 
himself  ill  with  gout  and  other  distempers,  and  his 
disorders  were  aggravated  by  close  vigils  and  the  depth 
of  his  affliction.  A  low  fever  seized  him,  presently 
turning  to  a  dangerous  ague.  He  met  his  council 
from  time  to  time  and  attended  to  affairs  as  long  as 
he  was  able.  It  was  in  these  days  (August  20)  that 
George  Fox  met  him  riding  in  Hampton  Court,  "and 
before  I  came  to  him,"  says  the  mystic,  "as  he  rode  at 
the  head  of  his  lifeguard  I  saw  and  felt  a  waft  of  death 
go  forth  against  him."  A  little  later  he  was  taken  to 
London,  and  while  St.  James's  was  being  made  ready, 
he  stayed  at  Whitehall.  He  quitted  it  no  more.  "He 
had  great  discoveries  of  the  Lord  to  him  in  his  sickness, 
and  had  some  assurances  of  his  being  restored  and 
made  further  serviceable  in  his  work.  Never  was 
there  a  greater  stock  of  prayers  going  for  any  man 
than  there  is  liow  going  for  him,  and  truly  there  is  a 
general  consternation  upon  the  spirits  of  all  men,  good 
and  bad,  fearing  what  may  be  the  event  of  it,  should  it 
please  God  to  take  his  Highness  at  this  time.  Men's 
hearts  seemed  as  sunk  within  them."  When  the  great 
warrior  knew  that  the  end  was  sure,  he  met  it  with  the 
confident  resignation  of  his  faith.     He  had  seen  death 


THE  CLOSE  463 

too  often  and  too  near  to  dread  the  parting  hour  of 
mortal  anguish.  Chaplains,  preachers,  godly  persons, 
attended  in  an  adjoining  room,  and  came  in  and  out, 
as  the  heavy  hours  went  on,  to  read  the  Bible  to  him  or 
to  pray  with  him.  To  one  of  them  he  put  the  moving 
question,  so  deep  with  penitential  meaning,  so  pathetic 
in  its  humility  and  misgiving,  in  its  wistful  recall  of 
the  bright  bygone  dawn  of  life  in  the  soul :  ^^Tell  me, 
is  it  possible  to  foil  from  grace?"  ''No,  it  is  not  pos- 
sible," said  the  minister.  "Then,"  said  the  dying 
Cromwell,  '7  am  safe,  for  I  knozv  that  I  zi'as  once  in 
grace." 

With  weighty  repetitions  and  great  vehemency  of 
spirit  he  quoted  the  texts  that  have  awed  or  consoled 
so  many  generations  of  believing  men.  In  broken 
murmurs  of  prayer  he  besought  the  favor  of  Heaven 
for  the  people;  that  they  might  have  consistency  of 
judgment,  one  heart,  and  mutual  love ;  that  they  and 
the  work  of  reformation  might  be  delivered.  "Thou 
hast  made  me,  though  x-ery  unworthy,  a  mean  instru- 
ment to  do  them  some  good,  and  thee  service;  and 
many  of  them  have  set  too  high  a  value  upon  me,, 
though  others  wish  and  would  be  glad  of  my  death. 
Pardon  such  as  desire  to  trample  on  the  dust  of  a  poor 
worm,  for  they  are  thy  people  too."  All  the  night  0: 
the  2d  of  September  he  was  very  restless,  and  "there 
being  something  to  drink  offered  him,  he  was  desired 
to  take  the  same  and  to  endeavor  to  sleep ;  unto  which 
he  answered,  'It  is  not  my  design  to  drink  or  to  sleep, 
but  my  design  is  to  make  zi'hat  haste  I  can  to  be  gone.'  " 
On  Monday,  the  30th  of  August,  a  wild  storm  had 
raged  over  land  and  sea,  and  while  Cromwell  was 
slowly  sinking,  the  days  broke  upon  houses  shattered, 
mighty  trees  torn  up  by  the  roots,  foundered  ships,  and 
drowning  men. 


464  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

Friday,  the  3d  of  September,  was  the  anniversary 
of  two  of  his  most  famous  victories.  It  was  just  eight 
years  since  w4th  radiant  eye  he  had  watched  the  sun 
rise  over  the  ghstening  waters  at  Dunbar,  and  seen  the 
scattering  of  the  enemies  of  the  Lord.  Now  he  lay  in 
the  stupor  of  helpless  death,  and  about  four  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon  his  days  came  to  their  end. 

His  remains  were  privately  interred  in  King  Henry 
the  Seventh's  chapel  three  weeks  later,  and  for  a  cou- 
ple of  months  a  waxen  effigy  in  robes  of  state  with 
crown  and  scepter  was  exhibited  at  Somerset  House. 
Then  (November  23)  the  public  funeral  took  place, 
with  profuse  and  regal  pomp,  and  amid  princes,  law- 
givers, and  warriors  who  have  brought  renown  and 
power  to  the  name  of  England  the  dust  of  Oliver 
Cromwell  lay  for  a  season  in  the  great  time-hallowed 
Minster. 

In  a  little  more  than  two  years  the  hour  of  ven- 
geance struck,  and  a  base  and  impious  revenge  it 
proved.  A  unanimous  resolution  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons directed  the  savage  ceremonial,  and  the  date  was 
the  anniversary  (January  30,  1661)  of  the  execution  of 
King  Charles  twelve  years  before.  "It  was  kept  as  a 
very  solemn  day  of  fasting  and  prayer.  This  morn- 
ing the  carcases  of  Cromwell,  Ireton,  and  Bradshaw 
(which  the  day  before  had  been  brought  from  the 
Red  Lion  Inn,  Holborn)  were  drawn  upon  a  sledge 
to  Tyburn  [a  stone's  throw  from  where  the  Marble 
Arch  now^  stands],  and  then  taken  out  of  their  coffins, 
and  in  their  shrouds  hanged  by  the  neck  until  the 
going  down  of  the  sun.  They  were  then  cut  down, 
their  heads  taken  off,  and  their  bodies  buried  in  a 
grave  under  the  gallows.  The  coffin  in  which  was 
the  body  of  Cromwell  was  a  very  rich  thing,  very 
full  of  gilded  hinges  and  nails."     The  three  heads 


From  a  miniature  by  Crosse  at  W  indsor  Castle.     By  special 
permission  of  Her  Majesty  the  Queen. 

ELIZABETH   CROMWELL   (MRS.  CLAYPOLE). 


THE  CLOSE  465 

were  fixed  upoji  poles,  and  set  up  at  the  southern  end 
of  Westminster  Hall,  where  Pepys  saw  them  four 
days  after  on  the  spot  at  which  the  regicides  had 
judged  the  king.^ 

To  imply  that  Cromwell  stands  in  the  line  of  Euro- 
pean dictators  with  Charles  V  or  Louis  XIV  or  Napo- 
leon is  a  hyperbole  which  does  him  both  less  than 
justice  and  more.  Guizot  brings  us  nearer  to  the 
truth  when  he  counts  Cromwell,  William  HI.  and 
Washington  as  chief  and  representative  of  sovereign 
crises  that  have  settled  the  destinies  of  nations.  \Mien 
we  go  on  to  ask  what  was  Cromwell's  special  share 
in  a  mission  so  supreme,  the  answer,  if  we  seek  it 
away  from  the  prepossessions  of  modern  controversy, 
is  not  hard  to  discern.  It  was  by  his  military  genius, 
by  the  might  of  the  legions  that  he  created  and  con- 
trolled and  led  to  victory  upon  victory ;  it  was  at  Mars- 
ton  and  Naseby,  at  Preston  and  Worcester,  in  Ireland 
and  at  Dunbar,  that  Cromwell  set  his  deep  mark  on 
the  destinies  of  England  as  she  was,  and  of  that  vaster 
dominion  into  which  the  English  realm  was  in  the 
course  of  ages  to  be  transformed.  He  was  chief  of  a 
party  who  shared  his  own  strong  perception  that  nei- 
ther civil  freedom  nor  political  could  be  made  secure 
without  the  sword,  and  happily  the  swordsman  showed 
himself  consummate.  In  speed  and  vigor,  in  dash  and 
in  prudence,  in  force  of  shock  and  quick  steadiness 
of  recovery;  in  sieges,  marches,  long,  wasting  cam- 
paigns, pitched  engagements;  as  commander  of  horse, 
as  tactician,  and  as  strategist,  the  modern  expert  ranks 
Cromwell  among  the  foremost  masters  of  the  rough 
art   of   war.     Above   all.   he   created   the   instrument 

1  So  I  read  Pepys.     In  any  case,  however,  evidence  points  to  the  fact 
that  the  heads  were  uUimately  fixed  on  the  roof  outside. 

30 


466  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

which,  in  disciphne,  skill,  and  those  highest  military 
virtues  that  come  of  moral  virtues,  has  never  been 
surpassed. 

Li  our  own  half-century  now  closing,  alike  in  west- 
ern Europe  and  across  the  Atlantic,  the  torch  of  war 
has  been  lighted  rather  for  Unity  of  race  or  state  than 
for  Liberty.  Cromwell  struck  for  both.  It  was  his 
armed  right  hand  that  crushed  the  absolutist  preten- 
sions alike  of  crown  and  miter,  and  then  forced  the 
three  kingdoms  into  the  mold  of  a  single  state.  It 
was  at  those  decisive  moments  when  the  trembling  bal- 
ance hung  on  fortune  in  the  battle-field  that  the  un- 
conquerable captain  turned  the  scale.  After  we  have 
discussed  all  the  minor  aspects  of  his  special  policies 
on  this  occasion  or  the  other,  after  we  have  scanned  all 
the  secondary  features  of  his  rule,  this  is  still  what  in 
a  single  sentence  defines  the  true  place  of  Cromwell  in 
our  history. 

Along  with  this  paramount  claim,  he  performed  the 
service  of  keeping  a  provisional  form  of  peace  and  de- 
livering the  nation  from  the  anarchy  in  which  both 
order  and  freedom  would  have  been  submerged.  He 
made  what  some  of  the  best  of  his  contemporaries 
thought  mistakes ;  he  forsook  some  principles,  in  his 
choice  of  means,  which  he  intended  to  preserve  in  work- 
ing out  the  end ;  and  some  of  his  difficulties  were  of  his 
own  creation.  Yet  watchfulness,  self-effacement,  ver- 
satility and  resource,  for  the  time  and  on  the  surface, 
repaired  all,  and  as  "constable  of  the  parish"  his  per- 
sistency was  unfaltering  and  unmatched.  In  the 
harder  task  of  laying  the  foundations  of  a  deeper  order 
that  might  be  expected  to  stand  after  his  own  imperious 
control  should  be  withdrawn,  he  was  beaten.  He 
hardly  counted  on  more.  In  words  already  quoted,  "I 
did  out  of  necessity,"  he  said,  "undertake  that  business,. 


THE  CLOSE  467 

not  so  much  out  of  a  hope  of  doing  any  good  as  out 
of  a  desire  to  prevent  mischief  and  evil."  He  reared 
no  dam,  no  bulwark  strong  enough  to  coerce  either 
the  floods  of  revolutionary  faction  or  the  reactionary 
tides  that  came  after.  "Does  not  your  peace,"  as 
Henry  Cromwell  asked,  "depend  upon  his  Highness's 
life,  and  upon  his  peculiar  skill  and  faculty  and  per- 
sonal interest  in  the  army?"  That  is  to  say,  the  Pro- 
tectorate was  no  system,  but  only  an  expedient  of  indi- 
vidual supremacy. 

Richard  Cromwell,  it  is  true,  acceded  without  oppo- 
sition. For  a  few  months  the  new  Protector  bore  the 
outward  ensigns  of  supreme  power,  but  the  reality  of 
it  was  not  his  for  a  day.  The  exchequer  was  so  di- 
lapidated that  he  underwent  the  humiliation  of  beg- 
ging Mazarin  to  lend  him  fifty  thousand  pounds.  The 
Council  of  War  sought  an  early  opportunity  of  setting 
up  their  claim  to  military  predominance.  The  ma- 
jority in  the  new  Parliament  was  undoubtedly  favor- 
able at  first  to  Richard  and  his  government,  but  a 
constitution  depending  for  its  life  on  the  fluctuations 
of  majority  and  minority  in  incessant  divisions  in  the 
lobbies  of  the  House  of  Commons  was  evidently  not 
worth  a  month's  purchase.  Authority  in  the  present 
was  sapped  and  dislodged  by  arraigning  the  past. 
Financial  deficit  and  abuses  in  administration  were  ex- 
posed to  rigorous  assault.  Prisoners  of  state,  com- 
mitted on  no  more  lawful  warrant  than  the  Protector's 
will,  were  brought  up  to  the  bar  from  the  Tower  and 
strong  places  elsewhere,  attended  by  applauding 
crowds,  and  received  with  marks  of  sympathy  for  the 
victim  and  resentment  against  the  dead  oppressor. 
Dunkirk,  Jamaica,  the  glories  of  Blake,  the  humili- 
ation of  Spain,  went  for  nothing  against  the  losses  of 
trade.     The  struggle  between   Parliament  and  army. 


468  OLIVER    CROMWELL 

so  long  quelled  by  the  iron  hand  of  Oliver,  but  which 
he  was  never  able  to  bring  to  enduring  adjustment, 
broke  into  flame.  Richard  Cromwell,  a  man  of  honor 
and  sense,  but  without  the  prestige  of  a  soldier,  suc- 
cumbed and  disappeared  (May,  1659).  The  old  quar- 
rel between  military  power  and  civil  fought  itself  to 
an  end  in  one  of  those  squalid  scenes  of  intrigue, 
egotism,  mutual  reproach,  political  impotency,  in 
which  so  many  revolutions  since  have  expired.  Hap- 
pily no  blood  was  shed.  Then  the  ancient  line  was 
recalled,  the  Cavaliers  infuriated  by  old  defeat  and 
present  ruin,  the  bishops  eager  to  clamber  into  their 
thrones  again,  the  bulk  of  the  nation  on  the  same 
side.  At  the  new  king's  right  hand  was  Clarendon; 
1)ut  fourteen  years  of  exile,  with  all  its  privations,  con- 
tumelies, and  heartsickness  of  hope  perpetually  de- 
ferred, had  soured  him  and  blotted  out  from  his  mind 
the  principles  and  aspirations  of  the  old  days  when  he 
had  stood  by  the  side  of  Pym  and  Hampden  against 
Laud,  Strafford,  and  Charles.  The  monarchy  no 
doubt  came  back  with  its  claims  abated.  So  much  the 
sword  of  Oliver  had  made  safe.  But  how  little  had 
been  permanently  done  for  that  other  cause,  more  pre- 
cious in  Oliver's  sight  than  all  the  rest,  was  soon  shown 
by  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  the  Test  Act,  the  Conven- 
ticle Act,  the  Five  Mile  Act,  and  the  rest  of  the  appa- 
ratus of  church  privilege  and  proscription. 

It  is  hard  to  resist  the  view  that  Cromwell's  revolu- 
tion was  the  end  of  the  medieval,  rather  than  the  be- 
ginning of  the  modern  era.  He  certainly  had  little 
of  that  faith  in  Progress  that  became  the  inspiration  of 
a  later  age.  His  respect  for  Public  Opinion,  supposed 
to  be  the  driving  force  of  modern  government,  was  a 
strictly  limited  regard.  In  one  sense  he  was  no  demo- 
crat, for  he  declared,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the  ques- 


Drawn  by  George  T.  Tobin  from  the  portrait  by  Sir  Peter  Lely  in  the 
Pitti  Gallery,  Florence. 


OLIVER    CROMWELL   AT    THE    AGE    OF    FIFTY-ONE. 


THE  CLOSE  469 

tion  is  not  what  pleases  people,  but  what  is  for  their 
good.  This  came  rather  near  to  Charles's  words  upon 
the  scaffold,  that  the  people's  liberty  lay  in  the  laws, 
"not  their  having  a  share  in  government;  that  is  noth- 
ing pertaining  to  them." 

On  the  other  hand,  he  was  equally  strong  that 
things  obtained  by  force,  though  never  so  good  in 
themselves,  are  both  less  to  the  ruler's  honor  and  less 
likely  to  last.  "What  we  gain  in  a  free  way,  it  is  bet- 
ter than  twice  as  much  in  a  forced,  and  will  be  more 
truly  ours  and  our  posterity's"  (ante.  Book  in.,Chap. 
iii.)  ;  and  the  safest  test  of  any  constitution  is  its  ac- 
ceptance by  the  people.  And  again :  "It  will  be  found 
an  unjust  and  unwise  jealousy  to  deprive  a  man  of  his 
natural  liberty  upon  a  supposition  he  may  abuse  it." 
The  root  of  all  external  freedom  is  here. 

In  saying  that  Cromwell  had  the  spirit,  insight,  and 
grasp  that  fit  a  man  to  wield  power  in  the  greatest 
affairs,  we  only  repeat  that  he  had  the  instinct  of  gov- 
ernment, and  this  is  a  very  different  thing  from  either 
a  taste  for  the  abstract  ideas  of  politics,  or  the  passion 
for  liberty.  The  instinct  of  order  has  been  as  often 
the  gift  of  a  tyrant  as  of  a  hero,  as  common  to  some 
of  the  worst  hearts  in  human  history  as  to  some  of  the 
best.  Cromwell  was  no  Frederick  the  Great,  who 
spoke  of  mankind  as  dicsc  vcrdainmte  Race — that  ac- 
cursed tribe.  He  belonged  to  the  rarer  and  nobler  type 
of  governing  men  who  see  the  golden  side,  who  count 
faith,  pity,  hope,  among  the  counsels  of  practical  wis- 
dom, and  who  for  political  power  must  ever  seek  a 
moral  base.  This  is  a  key  to  men's  admiration  for 
him.  His  ideals  were  high,  his  fidelity  to  them,  while 
sometimes  clouded,  was  still  enduring,  his  ambition 
was  pure.  Yet  it  can  hardly  be  accident  that  has 
turned  him  into  one  of  the  idols  of  the  school  who  hold, 


470  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

shyl}'  as  yet  in  England,  but  nakedly  in  Germany,  that 
might  is  a  token  of  right,  and  that  the  strength  and 
power  of  the  state  is  an  end  that  tests  and  justifies 
all  means. 

When  it  is  claimed  that  no  English  ruler  did  more 
than  Cromwell  to  shape  the  future  of  the  land  he  gov- 
erned, we  run  some  risk  of  straining  history  only  to 
procure  incense  for  retrograde  ideals.  Many  would 
contend  that  Thomas  Cromwell,  in  deciding  the  future 
of  one  of  the  most  powerful  standing  institutions  of 
the  country,  exercised  a  profounder  influence  than 
Oliver.  Then,  if  Cromwell  did  little  to  shape  the  fu- 
ture of  the  Church  of  England,  neither  did  he  shape 
the  future  of  the  Parliament  of  England.  On  the  side 
of  constitutional  construction,  unwelcome  as  it  may 
sound,  a  more  important  place  belongs  to  the  sage  and 
steadfast,  though  most  unheroic,  Walpole.  The  devel- 
opment of  the  English  constitution  has  in  truth  pro- 
ceeded on  lines  that  Cromwell  profoundly  disliked. 
The  idea  of  a  Parliament  always  sitting  and  actively 
reviewing  the  details  of  administration  was  in  his  sight 
an  intolerable  mischief.  It  was  almost  the  only  sys- 
tem against  which  his  supple  mind,  so  indifferent  as  it 
was  to  all  constitutional  forms,  was  inflexible.  Yet 
this  for  good  or  ill  is  our  system  to-day,  and  the  sys- 
tem of  the  great  host  of  political  communities  that 
have  followed  our  parliamentary  model.  When  it  is 
said,  again,  that  it  was  owing  to  Cromwell  that  non- 
conformity had  time  to  take  such  deep  root  as  to  defy 
the  storm  of  the  Restoration,  do  we  not  overlook  the 
original  strength  of  all  those  great  Puritan  fibers  from 
which  both  the  Rebellion  and  Cromwell  himself  had 
sprung?  It  was  not  a  man,  not  even  such  a  man  as 
Oliver ;  it  was  the  same  underlying  spiritual  forces  that 
had  made  the  Revolution  which  also  held  fast  against 


THE  CLOSE  471 

the  Restoration.     We  might  as  well  say  that  Crom- 
well was  the  founder  of  nonconformity. 

It  has  been  called  a  common  error  of  our  day  to 
ascribe  far  too  much  to  the  designs  and  the  influence 
of  eminent  men,  of  rulers,  and  of  governments.  The 
reproach  is  just  and  should  impress  us.  The  momen- 
tum of  past  events,  the  spontaneous  impulses  of  the 
mass  of  a  nation  or  a  race,  the  pressure  of  general 
hopes  and  fears,  the  new  things  learned  in  "novel 
spheres  of  thought,"  all  have  more  to  do  with  the 
progress  of  human  affairs  than  the  deliberate  views 
of  even  the  most  determined  and  far-sighted  of  our 
individual  leaders.  Thirty  years  after  the  death  of 
the  Protector  a  more  successful  revolution  came  about. 
The  law  was  made  more  just,  the  tribunals  were  puri- 
fied, the  press  began  to  enjoy  a  freedom  for  which 
Milton  had  made  a  glorious  appeal,  but  which  Crom- 
well dared  not  concede,  the  rights  of  conscience  re- 
ceived at  least  a  partial  recognition.  Yet  the  Decla- 
ration of  Right  and  the  Toleration  Act  issued  from  a 
stream  of  ideas  and  maxims,  aims  and  methods,  that 
were  not  Puritan.  New  tributaries  had  already  swol- 
len the  volume  and  changed  the  currents  of  that  broad 
confluence  of  manners,  morals,  government,  belief,  on 
whose  breast  Time  guides  the- voyages  of  mankind. 
The  age  of  rationalism,  with  its  bright  lights  and 
sobering  shadows,  had  begun.  Some  ninety  years 
after  1688  another  revolution  followed  in  the  England 
across  the  Atlantic,  and  the  gulf  between  Cromwell 
and  Jefferson  is  measure  of  the  vast  distance  that  the 
minds  of  men  had  traveled.  With  the  death  of  Crom- 
well the  brief  life  of  Puritan  theocracy  in  England  ex- 
pired. It  was  a  phase  of  a  movement  that  left  an  in- 
heritance of  some  noble  thoughts,  the  memory  of  a 
brave  struggle  for  human  freedom,  and  a  procession 


472  OLIVER  CROMW'ELL 

of  strenuous  master  spirits,  with  ]\Iilton  and  Crom- 
well at  their  head.  Political  ends  miscarry,  and  the 
revolutionary  leader  treads  a  path  of  fire.  It  is  our 
true  wisdom  to  learn  how  to  combine  sane  and  equit- 
able historic  verdicts  with  a  just  value  for  those  eternal 
qualities  of  high  endeavor,  on  which  amid  all  changes 
of  fashion,  formula,  direction,  fortune,  in  all  times  and 
places  the  world's  best  hopes  depend. 


i 


I 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Adwalton,  134 

Agitators    (army    representatives), 

213-215,  222,  237 
Agreement  ofthe  People  (1647),  221, 

225;    (1648),   225;    (1649),  225, 

359.  424 

American  Constitution,  Instrument 
of  Government  compared  with, 
362-3 

Anabaptism,  Cromwell's  relation  to, 
412 

Andrews,  Dean  of  Limerick,  33 

Anglican  Church  — 

Arminianism  in,  52;  assumptions 
of,  22 ;  Charles  I's  devotion  to, 
201-2 ;  Cromwell's  attitude  to- 
ward, 368,  41 1 ;  ecclesiastical 
courts,  57;  endowments  of,  cov- 
eted, 170;  episcopacy,  abolition 
of,  proposed,  145  ;  excluded  from 
toleration,  362,  367  ;  forbidden  by 
ordinance,  368,  371 ;  influence  of, 
after  the  Restoration,  5  ;  reform  of, 
attempted  (1641),  88-91;  West- 
minster Assembly,  non-attend- 
ance of  Anglicans  at,  147 

Anne  of  Denmark,  25 

Archers,  116 

Areopagitica,  159 

Argyle,  Marquis  of,  Hamilton  vic- 
torious over,  238 ;  Cromwell's  bar- 
gain with,  246;  defeat  of,  312 

Arminianism  denounced  at  Synod 
of  Dort,  II;  Pym's  attitude  to- 
ward, 39;  doctrines  of,  52-54; 
parliamentary  declaration  against, 
59 

Armor,  disuse  of,  1 16 

Arms,  116-118 

Army,  the  — 

Agitators,  213-215,  222,  237; 
agreement  of  the  people  issued 
by  (1647),  221,  225;  Case  of  the 


Army  Stated  issued  by,  225  ;  con- 
trol and  numbers  of,  regulated  by 
Instrument  of  Government,  361, 
378;  control  retained  by  Crom- 
well, 379;  debates  of,  222-3,  224- 
232;  depression  of,  239 ;  disband- 
ment  of,  attempted,  212-214,  223  ; 
heads  of  the  proposals  of,  225, 
359  ■>  legislative  incapacity  of,  348- 
349;  London,  march  on  (1648), 
259 ;  mutiny  in,  237 ;  New  Model, 
composition  of,  170-3;  contem- 
porary estimates  of,  177;  parlia- 
ment threatened  by,  217-18; 
remonstrance  presented  to  Par- 
liament by  (1648),  25 1;  sickness 
of,  in  Ireland,  293;  temper  of, 
after  Naseby,  222 

Artillery,  117-18 

Assassination  of  Cromwell  plotted, 
385,  406-8 


Baillie,  Robert,  cited  on  Strafford's 
trial,  80;  on  Independents,  154; 
on  confiscation  of  Church  endow- 
ments, 170;  on  the  New  Model, 
177;  Major-General  William,  at 
Marston,  137,  143;  ordered  to 
surrender  to  Cromwell,  245 

Barebones's  Parliament.  See  Little 
Parliament 

Basing  House,  storming  of,  190-1 

Baxter,  Richard,  ecclesiastical  views 
of,  90 ;  two  interviews  with  Crom- 
well, 430-1  ;  cited  on  religious 
ferment  in  1644,  '47;  on  the  New 
Model,  172,  222;  on  Cromwell's 
ecclesiastical  settlement,  369-70 

Beard,  Dr.,  11 

Behemoth,  cited,  54 

Berwick,  pacification  of,  65  ;  Crom- 
well's recovery  of,  246 


475 


476 


INDEX 


Bible,  jhe,  Cromwell's  acceptance 
of,  50-52  ;  Walton's  polyglot  ver- 
sion of,  429 

Biddle,  John,  Cromwell's  protection 
of,  403-4 

Blake,  Admiral,  naval  successes  of, 
198,  321,  323;  ability  of,  431; 
sent  by  Cromwell  to  Mediterra- 
nean, 438;  death  of,  443 

Bossuet,  cited  on  Queen  Henrietta 
Maria,  27-9;  on  universal  his- 
tory, 355 

Bourchier,  Elizabeth,  wife  of  Crom- 
well, 13 

Bradshaw,  John,  president  at 
Charles's  trial,  264,  269-70;  with- 
stands Cromwell  at  the  dissolu- 
tion of  Long  Parliament,  336-7; 
in  first  parliament  of  Protectorate, 
373;  withstands  Cromwell's  com- 
pulsion of  parliament  (1654),  377; 
Cromwell's  efforts  against,  397; 
remains  of,  desecrated,  464;  en- 
ergy and  capacity  of,  338 

Bramhall,  John,  Cromwell's  opinion 
of,  90 

Bristol,  royalist  capture  of,  134 ; 
capitulation  of,  to  Fairfax,  1S8; 
Nayler  at,  403 

Brook,  Lord,  death  of,  130 

Bunker  Hill,  Marston  Moor  com- 
pared with,  168 

Burke,  Edmund,  Cromwell  esti- 
mated by,  2  ;  Cromwell  and  Ire- 
ton  compared  with,  225-33 

Burnet,  Gilbert,  cited  on  Cromwell's 
Latin,  II-I2  ;  on  Henrietta  Maria, 

31 
Burton,  Henry,  6l-2,  146 
Butler,  Bishop,  opinion  on  Charles's 

trial,  268-9 


Calvinism,  Arminianism  crushed 
by,  II  ;   scope  of,  47-48,  55 

Cambridge,  Cromwell  at  Sidney 
Sussex  College,  11  ;  his  represen- 
tation of,  in  Short  Parliament,  66 ; 
in  Long  Parliament,  74;  his  ac- 
tivity in  (1642),  119 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  estimate  of  Crom- 
well, 2-3 ;  contrast  of  French 
Jacobins  and  English  sectaries, 
221  ;  estimate  of  Charles's  execu- 
tion, 272-3 ;  enthusiasm  for  action 


without  rhetoric,  286 ;  description 
of  Dunbar,  307 

Carnwath,  Lord,  at  Naseby,  184 

Case  of  the  Army  Stated,  224-5 

Catholicism  — 

Court,  at,  25,  43 ;  Cromwell's  re- 
ply to  manifesto  of  prelates,  294-5  5 
France,  predominant  in,  43,  439, 
446  ;  Holland,  in,  43  ;  Ireland,  in, 
95,  283-4,  405  ;  Ormonde's  Kil- 
kenny treaty,  284 ;  Laud's  attitude 
toward,  37;  persecution  of,  412- 
413;  toleration  denied  to,  158, 
362,367,412 

Cavalry  tactics,  115, 118,  126-7,  137- 
140,  182 

Chalgrove  Field,  131 

Chancery,  Court  of,  abolition  of, 
349;  Cromwell's  attempted  re- 
form of,  365 

Charles  I  — 

Chronological  Sequence  of  Career. 
Attempts  religious  coercion  in 
Scotland,  64;  persecutes  Sir  John 
Eliot,  66,  86,  286 ;  dismisses  Short 
Parliament,  68 ;  abandons  Straf- 
ford, 84;  declares  adherence  to 
Church  of  England,  93 ;  returns 
from  Scotland,  100 ;  approaches 
parliamentary  leaders,  102 ;  im- 
peaches five  members,  103  ;  raises 
royal  standard,  106;  gains  military 
successes,  134;  storms  Leicester, 
176;  Xaseby,  180,  184;  escapes 
from  Oxford,  195  ;  surrenders  to 
the  Scots,  196;  considers  terms 
of  settlement,  201 ;  at  Holmby, 
208;  removed  from  Holmby,  214, 
215;  escapes  from  Hampton  Court 
to  Carisbrooke  Castle,  233-4; 
concludes  secret  treaty  with  the 
Scots,  236;  negotiates  with  par- 
liamentary leaders  at  Newport, 
24S-50;  transferred  to  Hurst 
Castle,  259 ;  conveyed  to  Wind- 
sor, 261;  trial,  266-70;  execu- 
tion and  burial,  270-2;  Crom- 
well's judgment  of  the  execu- 
tion, 272 ;  Fox  and  Carlyle  on 
the  execution,  272-3 ;  popular 
sentiment  aroused  by  the  execu- 
tion, 351 

Personal  Characteristics. —  Ap- 
pearance, 248-9  ;  artistic  taste,  12, 
26 ;  blindness  to  events,  204-5 ; 


INDEX 


477 


determination,  188-201,  220,  234; 
devotion  to  the  queen,  27,  206  ;  to 
the  Church,  201-2 
General  Traits,  23,  24,  25-7,  69, 
133,   188,  201,  202,  220,  270 

Charles  II — Sent  to  France,  207; 
Scottish  negotiations  with  (1650), 
301  ;  advance  from  Stirling  to 
Worcester,  314;  flight,  317;  con- 
nives at  plot  to  assassinate  Crom- 
well, 382 ;  royalist's  interview 
with,  at  Cologne,  385 ;  restora- 
tion of,  468 

Chatham,  estimate  of  Cromwell, 
432 

Chillingworth,  William,  38,  no, 
191 

Church,  national  (see  also  Angli- 
can Church)  —  Cromwell's  im- 
portance in  history  of,  412  ;  estab- 
lishment and  endowment  of, 
provided  by  instrument  of  gov- 
ernment, 362  ;  government  of,  de- 
bated, 152-4;  iconoclasm  in,  91  ; 
Presbyterian  system  introduced 
into,  155-6;  separation  of,  from 
State  advocated  by  Milton,  366 

Clarendon,  Edward  Hyde,  Earl  of, 
banishment  of  Strafford  advocated 
by,  83 ;  Charles's  overtures  to, 
102;  return  of,  from  exile,  468; 
character  of,  91  ;  cited  —  on  Crom- 
well's characteristics,  2,  88;  on 
Essex,  173;  on  Independents 
and  Presbyterians,  212  ;  on  bur- 
ial of  Charles  I,  271  ;  on  Drog- 
heda  massacre,  291  ;  on  Crom- 
well's deliberation  regarding 
kingship,  420 

Claypole,  John,  opposes  bill  regard- 
ing major-generals,  406;  mar- 
riage of,  to  Elizabeth  Cromwell. 
428 

Clonmel,  siege  of,  293 

Coke,  Sir  Edward,  12,  16,  2X,  66, 
362 

Colchester,  siege  of,  ill,  242 

Coleman's  defense  of  Erastianism, 
154 

Cologne,  royalist  interview  with 
Charles  II  at,  385 

Committee  of  both  kingdoms,  169, 
176,  237 

Commonwealth,  proclamation  of, 
278 


Cony,  case  of,  387;  popular  sym- 
pathy with,  394 

Cotton,  Sir  Robert,  21,  67 

Council  of  State,  establishment  of, 
278  ;  Cromwell's  report  to,  on 
Ireland  and  Scotland,  284-5; 
promptitude     and    efficiency    of, 

314,321-3 

Court  of  High  Commission,  illegali- 
ties of,  61  ;   abolition  of,  85 

Crawford,  Lawrence,  rebuked  by 
Cromwell,  121 

Cromwell — 

Bridget  (daughter  of  Oliver),  mar- 
ried to  Ireton,  200;  to  Fleetwood, 
428  ;  Elizabeth  (daughter  of  Oli- 
ver), married  to  Claypole,  428; 
death  of,  462;  Elizabeth  (wife  of 
Oliver),  13-14;  Frances  (daugh- 
ter of  Oliver),  429 ;  Henry,  Sir 
(grandfather  of  Oliver),  9-10; 
Henry  (son  of  Oliver),  Cromwell's 
instructions  to,  in  Ireland,  297; 
representative  of  Ireland  in  Little 
Parliament,  344;  correspondence 
with  Thurloe,  379,  393-4,  405  ;  fi- 
nancial straits  of,  in  Ireland,  456  ; 
suspicious  of  combination,  457; 
comment  on  Cromwell's  position 
in  London,  419;  opinion  on  the 
kingship,  421  ;  estimate  of  the 
situation  in  165S,  457-8 ;  ability 
of,  374,  428  ;  Henry,  incident  of 
the  scarlet  cloak,  406 ;  Mary 
(daughter  of  Oliver),  married  to 
Fauconberg,  429 ;  intercedes  for 
Hewitt,  455;  Oliver — Chrono- 
logical Sequence  of  Career. — De- 
scent and  family,  9-10;  early 
life,  lO-ll,  12-13  '  marriage,  13  ; 
religious  gloom,  14-15  ;  member 
for  Huntingdon,  16;  first  speech 
in  Parliament,  17;  removal  to  S. 
Ives,  17;  to  Ely,  18;  dispute 
over  Huntingdon  charter,  18; 
death  of  eldest  son  (1639),  19; 
member  for  Cambridge  in  Short 
Parliament,  66;  in  Long  Par- 
liament, 74;  service  on  parlia- 
mentary committees,  88 ;  Edge- 
hill,  119-20;  conversation  with 
Hampden  on  choice  of  officers, 
120-1  ;  obstruction  in  Ely  Ca- 
thedral, 123-4;  Marston  Moor, 
136-43 ;    proposes     abolition    of 


478 


INDEX 


episcopacy,  145 ;  attacks  Lord 
Manchester,  164-6;  appointed 
lieutenant-general  under  Fairfax, 
174;  Naseby,  176-183;  thanked 
and  rewarded  by  parliament,  192  ; 
negotiates  with  the  army  for  dis- 
bandment,  213,  223;  threatens 
parliament  with  military  force, 
217-18;  army  debates,  224-32; 
operations  in  South  Wales,  242 ; 
Preston,  244-5  5  Charles's  trial, 
266-70;  Irish  campaign,  286-99; 
thanked  and  rewarded  by  parlia- 
ment, 301;  Dunbar,  304-9;  ill- 
ness, 310;  advance  to  Perth,  313  ; 
to  Worcester,  314-15;  battle  of 
Worcester,  315-77;  thanked  and 
rewarded  by  parliament,  319; 
dissolution  of  Rump  Parliament, 
334-7;  made  Lord  Protector 
(1653),  358;  legislative  activity, 
364-71 ;  compulsion  of  first  par- 
liament of  Protectorate,  376-7; 
plot  to  assassinate,  385  ;  purge 
of  parliament  (1656),  399;  plots 
to  assassinate,  406-8;  refuses 
kingship,  422  ;  again  installed  as 
Lord  Protector  (1657),  423-4; 
dissolves  second  parliament 
(1658),  453  ;  illness  and  death, 
462-3  ;  remains  desecrated,  464-5 
Personal  Characteristics,  etc. — 
Affection,  426-8,  462 ;  appear- 
ance and  manner,  74-6,  223 ; 
Bible,  attitude  toward,  50-2 ; 
broadmindedness,  6,  228 ;  cau- 
tion, 77,  107,  210,  258,  319, 
439,  466 ;  compassion  and  ten- 
derness, 77,  245,  347,  426-8; 
constructive  statesmanship,  de- 
ficiency of,  380,  456;  courage 
and  fortitude,  6,  18,  77,  210,  304- 
305  ;  education,  views  on,  12-13  > 
furtherance  of,  366,  429  ;  energv, 
6,  78,  88,  174,  310,  319,  448; 
faith,  18,  50-2,  77,  303,  305, 
355,  462-3 ;  finance,  incapacity 
for,  399;  force,  distrust  of,  223, 
469 ;  form  and  dogma,  indiffer- 
ence to,  228,  324,  358,  367; 
geniality,  429-30  ;  honor,  6 ;  hope- 
fulness, 176,  305,  319,  440;  im- 
petuosity and  passionateness,  18, 
76-7,  210,  336,  432;  jesting, 
love  of,  77,  209 ;  legal  apprehen- 


sion, incapacity  ot,  399 ;  military 
excellence,  465,  et  passim  ;  mod- 
eration, 221,  320,  384;  moral 
unity,  319;  music,  love  of,  429; 
mysticism,  303;  national  senti- 
ment, 255,  303;  order  and  gov- 
ernment, instinct  for,  365,  388, 
417,  469;  persistency  and  pa- 
tience, 6,  107,  174,  266,  440,  461, 
466;  popularity  with  his  troops, 
209;  public  opinion,  attitude  to- 
ward, 468;  reserve,  77,  253;  sa- 
gacity, 107,  219,  432;  lack  of 
sagacity,  346;  speech,  style,  and 
manner  of,  374;  sport,  love  of, 
429;  toleration,  122,  162,  186, 
189,  198,  347;  unity,  desire  for, 
224,  228 ;  Oliver,  Sir  (uncle  of 
Oliver),  10;  Richard,  Sir  (great- 
grandfather of  Oliver),  9  ;  Richard 
(son  of  Oliver),  Cromwell's  ad- 
monition to,  51;  character  and 
tastes  of,  428,  468;  Richard 
(uncle  of  Oliver),  17;  Robert 
(father  of  Oliver),  10, 15  ;  Thomas, 
9,470 
Culpeper,  102 


"  De  paucitate  credendorum,"  150 

De  Retz,  cited,  219,  339,  415 

Deane,  Admiral,  321-3 

Declaration  of  Right,  471 

Denmark,  Anne  of,  25  ;  Cromwell's 
treaty  with,  435 

Derby  House  Committee,  163, 246 

Desborough,  John,  republican  form 
of  government  advocated  by,  327; 
anxiety  of,  regarding  elections, 
394;  introduces  bill  regarding 
major-generals,  406 ;  opposes 
Cromwell's  acceptance  of  king- 
ship, 421 

D'Ewes,  Henrietta  Maria  described 
by,  30-31 

Diggers,  281-2,  325 

Dort,  Synod  of,  11,  52,  56 

Drogheda  massacre,  288-291 

Dunbar,  Cromwell's  position  at, 
304-6;  battle  of,  307-9;  Crom- 
well's estimate  of,  52,  311-12 

Dunes,  battle  of  the,  460 

Dunkirk,  treaty  for  cession  of,  444 ; 
capture  of,  and  cession  to  Eng- 
land, 459-60 


INDEX 


479 


Durham,  college  at,  founded  by 
Cromwell,  429 

Edgehill,  119-20,  136 

Education,  Cromwell's  views  on, 
12-13;  ^'s  furtherance  of,  366, 
429 

Ejectors  and  triers,  368 

Elector  Palatine,  103,  189 

Eliot,  Sir  John,  Cromwell  contrasted 
with,  12;  resolutions  of,  put  in 
defiance  of  Charles,  17;  imprison- 
ment and  death  of,  66,  286 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  Henry  Cromwell 
knighted  by,  9 ;  policy  of,  24,  34, 
447;  Ireland  under,  94;  duplicity 
of,  203 

Ely,  Cromwell's  removal  to,  18; 
his  defense  of,  1 77-8  ;  his  obstruc- 
tion in  the  cathedral,  123-4 

Engagers,  245,  300 

Episcopacy.     See  Anglican  Church 

Erastianism,  153-4 

Essex,  Earl  of,  advocates  Straf- 
ford's execution,  83  ;  unsuccessful 
against  Oxford,  134;  successful 
at  Gloucester,  135  ;  escapes  from 
Plymouth,  163;  Scotch  commis- 
sioners' debate  with,  on  Crom- 
well's conduct,  166  ;  resignation 
of,  173;  characteristics  of,  131  ; 
contemporary  estimate  of,  107-8 

Exeter,  capture  of,  by  Fairfax,  191 

Exeter,  Lord,  inquiry  of,  on  horse- 
racing,  391 

Faction,  90 

Fairfax,  Sir  Thomas,  at  Marston 
Moor,  137,  140-41  ;  appointed 
parliamentarian  commander-in- 
chief,  170,  197;  petitions  for 
Cromwell's  appointment  as  lieu- 
tenant-general, 174;  ajipreciation 
of  Cromwell,  178;  at  Naseby, 
178-80,  182-3;  Bristol  capitulates 
to,  188;  successes  of,  in  Devon, 
191;  at  Colchester,  in,  246; 
treatment  of  mutineers,  282 ; 
withdraws  from  prominent  posi- 
tion, 301-2  ;  energy  and  ability 
of,  134,  180,242;  scrupulousness 
of,  302 ;  otherwise  mentioned, 
135,217,234,264,271,315 

Falkland,  Lord,  Cromwell  con- 
trasted  with,   12;   abstains    from 


voting  on  Strafford's  attainder, 
83 ;  court  parly  supported  by, 
91-2;  Charles's  overtures  to,  102; 
death  of,  130 ;  estimate  of,  130 

Fauconberg,  Lord,  marriage  of,  to 
Lady  Mary  Cromwell,  429;  sent 
by  Cromwell  to  Calais,  459-60 

Fifth  Monarchy  men,  280,  348,408 

Fleet  — 

Cromwell  supported  by,  383; 
mutiny  in,  237 ;  organization  of, 
by  Council  of  State,  321  ;  parlia- 
mentarians supported  by,  no; 
West  Indies  expedition,  436-8 

Fleetwood,  Charles,  advanced  views 
of,  198  ;  negotiates  with  the  army 
for  disbandment,  213;  battle  of 
Worcester,  315-16;  opposes 
Cromwell's  acceptance  of  king- 
ship, 421 ;  married  to  Bridget 
Cromwell,  428;  tries  to  dissuade 
Cromwell  from  dissolving  parlia- 
ment, 453 ;  otherwise  mentioned, 
298,  304,  321,  456 

Fox,  Charles,  on  execution  of 
Charles  I,  272 

Fox,  George,  Nayler  a  disciple  of, 
402-3;  Cromwell's  regard  for,  410 

France  — 

Commonwealth  recognized  by, 
321 ;  convention  of  1793  compared 
with  the  Rump's  proposed  con- 
stitution, 333;  Cromwell's  rela- 
tions with,  439-41  ;  Fronde,  the, 
contrasted  with  the  civil  war, 
209;  Protestantism  in,  157 

Gainsborough,   cavalry    victory   at, 

124-6 
Gardiner,  S.  R.,  cited,  3,  179,  436 
Gerard,    Cromwell's    assassination 

plotted  by,  382 
Glamorgan  treaty,  206 
Gloucester,  siege  of,  135 
Gloucester,  Duke  of,  327,  459 
Godwin,  W.,  estimateof  Cromwell, 2 
Goffe,  Col.,  227,  230,  395 
Goring,  Lord,  137,  140-I,  177 
Gowran,  surrender  of,  292-3 
Grand    Remonstrance,  the   (1641), 
demands    of,   lOO-l,    145-6;   In- 
strument   of    Government    con- 
trasted with,  362 
Grantham,  cavalry   skirmish   near, 
124 


48o 


INDEX 


Guizot,  cited,  340,  441,  465 
Gustavus    Adolphus,    influence    of, 

on  military  tactics,  115 
Gustavus    Vasa,    position  of,   com- 
pared with  Cromwell's,  372-3 

Hallam  on  Long  Parliament,  85-6 
Hamilton,    James,   Duke    of,   238, 

241-5 

Hammond,  Col.,  Cromwell's  letters 
to,  254-5 

Hampden,  John,  claims  of,  23 ; 
ship-money  case  decided  against, 
62-3 ;  Strafford's  attainder  op- 
posed by,  83;  watches  Charles 
in  Scotland,  92 ;  impeached  by 
Charles,  103 ;  proposes  parlia- 
mentary control  of  militia,  105  ; 
Cromwell's  advice  to,  about  offi- 
cers, 120-I  ;  death  of,  131  ;  Crom- 
well contrasted  with,  12;  other- 
wise mentioned,  16,  19,  61,  122, 
362 

Harrison,  Major,  Charles  conveyed 
to  Windsor  by,  260-I ;  march  on 
Worcester,  315;  at  dismissal  01 
Long  Parliament,  334-6;  mem- 
ber of  Little  Parliament,  344; 
convention  inspired  by,  345  ;  im- 
prisonment of,  385,  422 ;  sus- 
pected of  designs  on  Cromwell, 
408 ;  extreme  views  of,  329,  343  ; 
Cromwell's  regard  for,  408 ;  other- 
wise mentioned,  252,  271 

Haselrig,  Sir  Arthur,  impeached  by 
Charles,  103  ;  in  first  parliament 
of  Protectorate,  373;  withstands 
Cromwell's  compulsion  of  parlia- 
ment, 377;  influence  of,  feared 
by  Whalley,  394 

Heads  of  the  Proposals  of  the  Army, 
225,  359 

Healing  Question,  the,  397 

Henderson,  Alexander,  149-50 

Henrietta  Maria,  Queen,  charac- 
teristics and  influence  of,  25, 
29-31  ;  correspondence  of,  with 
Charles,  202-3,  205-6 

Henry  of  Navarre,  25,  30,  203 

Herbert,  George,  Laud's  influence 
on,  38 

Herbert,  Lady,  on  Naseby  field, 
184-5 

Hewitt,  Dr.,  case  of,  455 

Hinchinbrook,  9,  15 


Hitch,  Mr.,  Cromwell's  dispute 
with,    123-4 

Hobbes,  54,  73,  133 

Holland  — 

Arminianism  in,  52-3;  Catholic 
influence  in,  43 ;  Cromwell's 
treaty  with,  435 ;  hostility  be- 
tween English  parliament  and, 
280,  322-3,  442 ;  Wagstaff"e's 
flight  to,  384 ;  war  with,  323 

Holies,  Denzil,  Speaker  detained 
by,  17;  impeached  by  Charles, 
103;  hostihty  of,  to  Cromwell, 
166-7;   Presbyterians  led  by,  247 

Holmby,  Charles  I  at,  208;  his  re- 
moval from,  214-15 

Hopton,  Ralph,  Lord,  no,  134,  191 

Horncastle  fight,  126-7 

Howe,  John,   devotional    feats   of, 

431 

Hull,  Charles  I  refused  entry  of, 
106;  Fairfax's  withdrawal  to, 
134;  siege  of,  raised  by  New- 
castle, 136 

Humble  Petition  and  Advice,  na- 
ture of,  362,424-5;  introduction 
of,  416 

Huntingdon,  Cromwell  member  for, 
16;  charter  dispute,  18 

Hurst  Castle,  259 

Hyde.     See  Clarendon 

Lidependents  (see  also  Puritan- 
ism) — 

Cromwell  supported  by,  162  ;  in- 
tolerance of,  414;  Irish  policy  of, 
294;  Long  Parliament  reinforced 
by,  198;  numerical  inferiority  of, 
279;  Presbyterians  opposed  by, 
153,  161-2,  198,  201,  204,  366; 
contrasted  with,  212 

Instruments  of  Government  — 
Adoption  of,  358;  American  con- 
stitution compared  with,  363 ; 
army,  control  and  numbers  of, 
regulated  by,  361-2,  378-9; 
Cromwell's  contravention  of,  390; 
fundamentals  of,  363,  377-8; 
provisions  of,  360-2,  424;  re- 
modeling of,  416;  toleration  af- 
firmed by,  362,  367 

Inverkeithing,  313 

Ireland  — 

Catholicism  in,  95,  283-4,  405 ; 
Charles    I's    proposed  abandon- 


INDEX 


481 


ment  of,  202 ;  Cromwell's  settle- 
ment of,  287,  297-9,  317;  danger 
to  England  from,  207;  Henry 
Cromwell  Lord  Deputy  of,  428  ; 
incorporation  of,  with  England 
originated  by  Long  Parliament, 
344,  365;  land  settlement  scheme 
for,  365;  O'Neill's  importance  in, 
283  ;  Ormonde's  policy  in,  283-4 ; 
rebellion  of  1641,  causes  of,  94-6  ; 
scope  of,  96-8  ;  representation  of, 
in  English  parliament,  344;  par- 
liamentary influence  of,  405 ; 
Rinuccini's  aims  in,  283 ;  Straf 
ford's  rule  and  policy  in,  20,  32-3, 
61,  95;    his    unpopularity  in,  81, 

95 

Ireton,Henry,atNaseby,  180-1,183, 
199  ;  at  Marston,  Gainsborough, 
and  Edgehill,  199;  negotiates  with  ' 
the  army  for  dislvandment,  213; 
Heads  of  the  Proposals  of  the 
Army  framed  by,  225 ;  debates 
measures  with  extremists  in  the 
army,  225-231  ;  remonstrance  of 
the  army  drawn  up  by,  251  ;  dese- 
cration of  remains  of,  464;  ad- 
vanced views  of,  198;  character 
and  ability  of,  199-200  ;  otherwise 
mentioned,  ill,  198,  271,  321 

Irish  —  camp-followers  slain  at 
Naseby,  184,  286;  defeat  of,  un- 
der Montrose,  187;  English  con- 
trasted with,  219;  transportations 
of,  to  Jamaica,  297 

Ironside,  origin  of  nickname,  139 

Jamaica,    Irish     transportation    to, 

297;  seizure  of,  438,  447 
Jefferson,  Cromwell  contrasted  with, 

471 
Jesuits,  influence  of,  42 ;   proposed 

rigorous  legislation  against,  412 
Jews,  position  of,  under  Cromwell, 

413 
Johnson,  Dr.,  on  Laud's  execution, 

'55 
Joyce,  Cornet,  214-15 
Juxon,  bishop  of  London,  57,  83 

Killing  no  Murder,  406 
Kirk  sessions,  powers  of,  57 
Knox,  John,  55 

Lambert,  John,  at  Dunbar,  307-8 ; 
in    Scotland,  312-13;   march    on 


Worcester,  315  ;  member  of  Little 
Parhament,  344;  Instrument  of 
Government  prepared  by,  357; 
resents  parliamentary  attack  on 
major  generals,  405;  opposes 
Cromwell's  acceptance  of  king- 
ship, 418,  421;  dismissed  by 
Cromwell,  422;  opposes  aggres- 
sion in  West  Indies,  436  ;  military 
talent  and  ability  ol,  263,  315. 
374;  extreme  views  of,  329; 
otherwise  mentioned,  242,  336, 
344,  430,  457 

Langdale,  hir  Marmaduke,  1S0-2, 
242-4 

Lansdown,  royalist  victory  at,  134 

Laud,  archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
Sidney  Sussex  College  denounced 
by,  1 1  ;  Scotch  policy  of,  20,  64 ; 
Arminianism  approved  by,  52 ; 
chief  justice  censured  by,  58; 
flight  of,  from  Lambeth,  69; 
Strafford's  case  estimated  by, 
84;  Prynne  victimized  by,  286; 
execution  of,  155,  191 ;  charac- 
teristics of,  37-9;  estimate  of, 
by  historians,  35-6;  Bramhall 
compared  with,  by  Cromwell,  90 

Lecturers,  Cromwell's  plea  for,  18 

Leicester,  storming  of,  by  Charles  I, 
176 

Leighton,  Alexander,  61-2,  90 

Lenthall,  William,  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  withstands 
Charles's  violation  of  parliamen- 
tary privilege,  103-4;  joins  the 
army,  217;  Cromwell's  confer- 
ences with,  263 ;  Cromwell  ac- 
companied by,  on  entering  Lon- 
don, 319;  monarchy  advocated 
by,  326-7 ;  protests  against  dis- 
solution of  the  Rump  Parliament, 
337;  his  view  of  Cromwell's 
Chancery  ordinance,  365 

Leslie,  David,  Cromwell  supported 
by,  at  Marston  Moor,  137-9,  141, 
143;  Montrose  defeated  by,  187; 
Cromwell  opposed  by,  in  Edin- 
burgh, 304;  at  Dunbar,  304-7; 
at  Stirling,  312 

Levelers,  225,  230,  231,  281-2,  325 

Leven,  Lord,  136 

Lilburne,  John,  persecution  of,6l-2; 
Agreement  of  the  People  drawn 
up    by     (1648;,    225;     trial    and 


482 


INDEX 


acquittal  of,  350;  characteristics 
of,  280 

Little  Parliament,  summoning  of, 
343-4;  Scotland  and  Ireland 
represented  in,  344;  Cromwell's 
inaugural  address  10,345-7;  fidel- 
ity of,  to  Cromwell,  348;  legisla- 
tive attempts  of,  349-50;  dissolu- 
tion of,  350-1 

Lockhart,  Sir  William,  431,  459-61 

London,  City  of  — 

Army,  hostility  to,  223  ;  disband- 
ment  of,  urged,  212;  Charles  I, 
welcomed  by,  100;  his  cause  fa- 
vored by  (1648),  246;  Cromwell 
thanked  by,  for  Irish  victories, 
301;  acclaimedby, after  Worcester, 
319;  his  vigilance  over,  386;  fer- 
ment of,  in  1644,  147;  parliamen- 
tarians supported  by,  109;  peace 
desired  by,  21 1;  petitions  pre- 
sented by,  452 ;  Presbyterianisni 
strong  in,  279,  369;  Puritanism 
strong  in,  68;  riots  in  (1647), 
216-7;  (1648),  23S 

Long  Parliament  — 

Calling  of,  70 ;  Charles's  attack  on 
five  members  of,  103-5  '  compo- 
sition of,  71-3  ;  Cromwell's  rela- 
tions numerous  in,  74;  Holland, 
attitude  toward,  280,  322-3,  442; 
mihtary  force,  threatened  with, 
216-18;  numbers  of,  in  divisions, 
in  early  days,  197;  after  Pride's 
Purge,  277;  Pride's  Purge,  259- 
260,  329 

Lords,  House  of — 

Abolition  of,  277-8;  bishops'  ex- 
clusion from,  proposed,  89,  93, 
145  ;  Charles  I,  cause  of,  sup- 
ported by,  92,  247;  ordinance  for 
impeachment  of,  rejected  by,  262  ; 
Commons  supported  by  (1640), 
73;  in  disagreement  with,  92, 
247,  262 ;  insignificance  of,  in 
1647,  197;  rioters'  attack  on,  217; 
royalism  of,  92,  247,  262 ;  Straf- 
ford, attitude  toward,  79-80 

Ludlow,  Edmund,  comment  on  the 
Drogheda  massacre,  290-1  ;  com- 
plaints to  Cromwell,  324 ;  disso- 
lution of  Rump  Parliament  de- 
scribed by,  334-6;  Cromwell's 
overtures  to,  457;  otherwise 
mentioned,  198,  266,  321 


Lynn,    Elizabeth    (wife    of    Robert 
Cromwell),  10 


Magna  Charta,  Cromwell's  mock  at, 
387 

Major-Generals,  scope  of  work  of, 
388-9 ;  failure  of,  401 ;  parlia- 
mentary decision  against,  404-5 

Manchesier,  Earl  of,  attacked  by 
Cromwell,  164-6;  resignation  of, 
173;  temperament  of,  131,  163; 
otiierwise     mentioned,    15,     121, 

135. 

Manning,  Cromwell  informed  of 
royalist  doings  by,  385-6 

Mardyke,  444 

Marston  Moor,  battle  of,  136-143; 
moral  effect  of  victory,  154-5 ; 
compared  with  Bunker  Hill,  168; 
with  Naseby,  182-3;  royalist 
rendezvous  near  site  of,  383 

Mary  of  Guise,  25 

Mary  Stuart,  Queen  of  Scots,  25,  85 

Mary  Tudor,  Queen  of  England,  42 

Mayor,  Richard,  extract  from  Crom- 
well's letter  to,  51 

Mazarm,  Richelieu  succeeded  by, 
130  ;  Scottish  intrigues  with,  203' ; 
correspondence  with  Cromwell 
regarding  toleration  for  Catho- 
Hcs,  203,  412;  at  Dunkirk,  459; 
idea  of,  in  ceding  Dunkirk,  460; 
character    and   policy   of,  439-43 

Mediterranean,  English  fleet  in,  321, 
438 

Militia  Bill  (1641),  loi 

Milton,  John  — 

Areopagitica  published  by,  159; 
Church  and  State,  separation  of, 
advocated  by,  366;  Cromwell 
contrasted  with,  12;  advised  by, 
356-7 ;  national  sentiment  of, 
255;  secretaryship  of  the  Coun- 
cil of  State  held  by,  356,  390; 
toleration  advocated  by,  45,  159- 
161;  cited  —  on  state  of  London 
in  1644,  147 ;  on  national  free- 
dom, 221  ;  on  toil  of  construc- 
tive policy,  318;  on  popular 
sentiment  for  Charles  I,  351; 
otherwise  mentioned,  56,  73,  273, 

333.  414,  472 
Mommsen,  Sulla  compared  to  Crom- 
well by,  364 


INDEX 


483 


Monk,  General  George,  321,  323, 
344.  431 

Montrose,  Marquis  of,  146,  187, 
205 

Mozley,  J.  B.,  estimate  of  Crom- 
well, 253 

Napoleon,  numbers  under,  136 

Naseby,  battle  of,  176-86;  Irish 
camp-followers  slain  after,  184, 
286;   moral  effects  of  victory,  222 

Navarre,  Henry  of,  25,  30,  203 

Navigation  Act  (1651),  322,  447-8 

Navy.     See  Fleet 

Nayler,  James,  case  of,  403-4 

Newark,  royalist  stronghold  at,  124 

Newburn,  69 

Newbury,  130,  135,  164 

Newcastle,  royalist  port  at,  134; 
nineteen  propositions  of,  201 

Newcastle,  Earl  of,  at  Gainsbor- 
ough, 125 ;  besieged  in  York, 
136;  at  Marston  Moor,  137-8, 
141  ;  character  of,  133 

New  England,  Puritan  exodus  10,39 

Newman,  on  Eaud,  36 

New  Model.     See  under  Army 

Newport  treaty,  terms  of,  248-50; 
Cromwell's  view  of,  258 

O'Byrnes,  treatment  of,  96 

Okey,  John,  social  position  of,  171  ; 
at  Naseby,  181;  suspected  01 
designs  on  Cromwell,  408 

O'Neil,  Sir  Phelim,  98 

O'Neill,  Owen  Roe,  283 

Ormonde,  Earl  of,  Charles's  instruc- 
tions to,  250-1 ;  character  and 
policy  of,  283-4 

Other  House,  the,  480-1 

Overton,  Richard,  imprisonment  of, 
386 

Owen,  Dr.  John,  ecclesiastical 
scheme  of,  adopted  by  Crom- 
well, 368 

Oxenstierna,  Whitelocke's  inter- 
view with,  concerning  Cromwell, 
372 

Oxford  — 

Charles  I's  escape  from,  195 ; 
Essex  unsuccessful  at,  134;  sur- 
render of,  196;  treaty  of  (1643), 
200 ;  university  men  in  Long 
Parliament,  72 


Packe,    Sir    Christopher,  proposals 

of,  415-16 
Paris,  treaty  of,  443 
Parliament  — 

Long,  Short,  etc.    See  those  titles ; 
purges    of  (1647),  216;    Pride's. 
259-60,  329;  (1654),  332,  376-7; 
(1656),  329,  399 
Peers.     See  Lords 
Pembroke  Castle,  Cromwell's  cap- 
ture of,  242 
Penruddock's  rising,  384 
Perth,  Cromwell's  advance  to,  313 
Peters,  Hugh,  191,  461 
Petition  of  Right,  16 
Philip  IV  of  Spain,  439 
Philiphaugh,  187 

Piedmontese,  massacre  of,  298,  441 
Portugal,    Cromwell's    treaty    with, 
^435 
Prelacy.      See   Anglican   Church  — 

Episcopacy 
Press,  censorship  of,  under  parlia- 
mentarians, 282;    under    Protec- 
torate, 390 
Presbyterianism  — 

Charles  I's  dislike  of,  20I ;  Eng- 
land, introduced  into,  155-6 
kirk  sessions,  powers  of,  57 
London,  strong  in,  279,  369 
Montrose's  dislike  of,  I46-7 
party  aspect  of,  161,  324 
Presbyterians  — 

Exasperation     of     (1649),    279  ; 
Fairfax's    position    a   satisfaction 
to,  302 ;    Independents    opposed 
to,  153-4,  161,  198,  201,  204,366; 
contrasted   with,   212;    toleration 
opposed  by,  158,  247-8,  300,  369 
Preston,  battles  of,  244-5 
Pride,  Col.,  social  position   of,  171  ; 
Pride's  Purge,  259-60,  329 ;  peti- 
tion   of,   against    Cromwell's    ac- 
ceptance of  kingship,  422 
Propagation  of  religion,  Cromwell's 

eagerness  for,  366-7,  429,  450 
Protesters,  312 
Prynne,  William,  61-2,  286 
Public    opinion,    Cromwell's     atti- 
tude toward,  468 
Punishments,  barbarity  of,  61-2,  96 
Purges    of  Parliament.     See  under 

Parliament 
Puritanism    (see   also    Anabaptism 
and  Independents) — 


484 


INDEX 


Aims  of,  47-8;  austerity  of,  un- 
popular 238,  390;  exodus  of  Puri- 
tans to  New  England,  39;  intol- 
erance and  violence  of,  146,  159, 
162,  169,  403 ;  Irish  troubles  ag- 
gravated by,  95-6  ;  legislative  in- 
capacity of,  349  ;  national  cove- 
nant the  center  of,  65  ;  Presbyte- 
rianism  contrasted  with,  129 ; 
Protestant  left  wing,  44;  rise  of, 
55-6;  strength  of,  176;  vague- 
ness in  ideas  of,  209 
Pym,  John,  claims  of,  23  ;  leader  of 
parliamentary  party,  67,  88,  92  ; 
Strafford  impeached  by,  79; 
Strafford's  attainder  opposed  by, 
8^;  bill  for  excluding  bishops 
from  parliament  supported  by, 
93;  Charles's  overtures  to,  102; 
Charles's  impeachment  of,  103 ; 
Scottish  treaty  concluded  by, 
127-9;  death  of,  131;  character- 
istics and  ability  of,  39-41,  67, 
105-6  ;  otherwise  mentioned,  16, 
63,  86,  105,  122,  362 


Quakers,  persecutions  of,  under  the 
Protectorate,  409-11 


Rainborough,    Thomas,    arguments 

with,  227,  230-1 
Ranke,  cited,  31 1,  321,  343,  442 
Rationalism,  toleration  sprung  from, 

414,471 
Remonstrants,  312 
Resolutioners,  312 
Retz,  de,  cited,  219,  339,  415 
Rich,    Robert,    married     lo    Lady 

Frances  Cromwell,  429 ;  death  of, 

462 
Richelieu,  Strafford  compared  with, 

34 ;  Scotland  promised  aid  by,  65  ; 

Mazarin    the   successor  of,  130; 

treaty  of  Westphalia  due  to,  439 
Rinuccini,  papal  nuncio  in  Ireland, 

283-4 
Rogers,    John,    Cromwell's    inter- 
view with,  41 1 
"  Root-and-Branch  "  policy,  63,  89- 

90,  93 
Round  way  Down,  134 
Rump  Parliament,  unpopularity  of, 

328,  constitutional  plans  of,  330; 


dissolution  of,  334-7 ;  estimate 
of  transaction,  337-41 
Rupert,  Prince,  in  York  and  after, 
136,  163  ;  at  Marston  Moor,  137- 
140,  143;  at  Naseby,  180,  183; 
Charles's  letter  to,  188-9;  es- 
cape of,  from  Bristol,  188-9; 
naval  operations  of,  280 ;  tem- 
perament and  ability  of,  107,  127 

Saint  Domingo,    failure    of  expedi- 
tion to,  438 
St.  Ives,  Cromwell's  removal  to,  17 
St.  John,  Oliver,  20,  23,   82,  326-7, 

344 

Salisbury,  royalist  rising  at,  384 

Scotland  — 

Charles  I's  religious  policy  in, 
64-5;  visit  to,  87;  Charles'  IPs 
arrival  in,  301 ;  Cromwell's  ajipeal 
to  the  General  Assembly,  302-3  ; 
England's  ignorance  of  affairs  in, 
65 ;  parliamentary  support  of, 
67 ;  danger  to  England  appre- 
hended from,  200;  hostility  of, 
to  England  (1649-50),  282-3, 
300-1 ;  incorporation  of,  with 
England  originated  by  Long 
Parliament,  344,  365;  representa- 
tion of,  in  English  parliament, 
344  ;  influenceof  representatives, 
405 ;  kirk  sessions,  powers  of, 
57;  Knox's  influence  in,  55; 
Mazarin's  dealings  with,  203; 
National  Covenant,  inauguration 
of,  64-5  ;  Pym's  treaty  with,  127-9, 
148;  Richelieu's  dealings  with, 
65 ;  Shorter  Catechism's  effect 
on,  151  ;  Strafford's  unpopular- 
ity in,  81 

Scots  — 

Advance  of,  to  Durham,  69; 
over  the  border  (1644),  136; 
sufferings  in  north  of  England 
under,  169;  Charles  I,  enthu- 
siasm for,  187;  his  surrender  to, 
196  ;  his  abandonment  by,  207-8  ; 
his  secret  treaty  with,  236 ;  his 
cause  favored  by,  241 ;  Charles 
II,  negotiations  with,  in  Hol- 
land, 301 ;  march  south  with, 
314;  Committee  of  Both  King- 
doms, represented  on,  237 ; 
Cromwell's  unpopularity  with 
Scotch     commissioners,     166-7, 


INDEX 


485 


campaign  of  1650,  300-15  ;  Eng- 
lish contrasted  with,  219;  Ire- 
land, in,  99 

Sealed  Knot,  the,  382-3 

vSeekers,  210 

Selby,  136 

Selden,  John,  16,  23,  67,  72,  83, 
148 

Self-denying  Ordinance,  174-5,  197; 
second,  174 

Sexby,  Cromwell's  assassination 
plotted  by,  407 

Ship-money,  opposition  to,  62,  68; 
abolition  of,  85 

Short  Parliament,  66-8 

Sidney,  Algernon,  198,  267 

Sindercombe,  Miles,  Cromwell's  as- 
sassination plotted  by,  407 

Skippon,  Philip,  179,  180-1,  213 

Slingsby,  Sir  Henry,  case  of,  455 

Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  128- 
129,  148 

Southworth,  John,  fate  of,  413 

Spain  — 

Commonwealth  recognized  by, 
321  ;  Cromwell's  assurances  to, 
438;  alleged  negotiations  with, 
446;  hostility  of,  to  England 
(1656"),  4:;8;   war  with,  442 

Star  Chamber,  illegalities  of,  61 ; 
abolition  of,  85 

Steward,  Elizabeth,  wife  of  Robert 
Cromwell,  10 

Strafford,  Thomas  Wentworth,  Earl 
of,  popular  party  supported  by, 
16;  rule  and  policy  of,  in  Ire- 
land, 20,  32-3,  61,  95;  court 
partly  supported  by,  31;  recall 
of,  from  Ireland,  70;  impeach- 
ment and  death  of,  77-84 ;  char- 
acter and  aims  of,  31-5;  Crom- 
well compared  with,  294-5,  298, 
359;    otherwise    mentioned,  337, 

393 

Stratton,   134 

Strode,  Charles's  impeachment  of, 
103 

Sweden  — 

Cromwell's  treaty  with,  435 ; 
quarrels  of,  445 ;  Queen  Chris- 
tina of,  on  Cromwell,  372-3 

Swift,  cited,  423,  429* 

Tadcaster,  134 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  38,  412 


Thirty  Years'  War,  religious  ele- 
ment in,  43-4;  numbers  of  troops 
engaged  in,  136 

"  Thorough,"  policy  of,  63 

Thurloe,  John,  correspondence  of, 
with  Henry  Cromwell,  379,  393- 
394,  405  ;  vigilance  of,  385,  397 
hostility  of,  to  Quakers,  410 
Cromwell's  relations  with,  431 
financial  straits  of,  455,  461 : 
cited,  384,  389,  427-8,  455  ;  other 
wise  mentioned,  386,  432-3,  446 

Toleration  — 

Catholicism  excluded  from,  160, 
362,  367,  412;  Cromwell's  ad- 
herence to,  122,  159,  186,  189, 
198,  347;  Instrument  of  Govern- 
ment's adoption  of,  362,  367; 
Milton's  view  of,  45,  159-61  ; 
parliamentary  attitude  toward, 
158,  402  ;  prelacy  excluded  from, 
362,  369 ;  Presbyterian  attitude 
toward,  158,  247-8,  300,  369 

Toleration  Act,  471 

Triers  and  ejectors,  368 

Turenne,  Cromwell's  veterans 
praised  by,  444  ;  commanding  at 
Dunkirk,  459 


Ulster  rebellion,  alleged  connec- 
tion of,  with  Drogheda  massacre, 
291 

Usher,  archbishop  of  Armagh,  83, 
90 

Uxbridge,  treaty  of  (1644-5^  200 


Wane,  Sir  Henry,  abolition  of 
episcopacy  proposed  by,  145 ; 
Charles's  trial  disapproved  by, 
267;  maritime  policy  of,  321, 
323 ;  constitutional  scheme  of, 
331-3 ;  withstands  Cromwell  at 
dissolution  of  Rump  Parliament, 
335  ;  Scottish  policy  of,  344 ; 
Healing  Question  published  by, 
397;  imprisonment  of,  397; 
Cromwell's  overtures  to,  457; 
energy  and  capacity  of,  338 ; 
otherwise  mentioned,  72,  394 

Vaudois,  case  of  the,  298,  441-2 

Venner,  plot  of,  408 

Vowel,  Cromwell's  assassination 
plotted  by,  382 


486 


INDEX 


Wales,  Cromwell's  operations  in, 
242 

Walker,  Clement,  on  Irish  policy 
of  Independents,  294 

Waller,  Sir  William,  letter  of,  to 
Hopton,  1 10  ;  defeat  of,  134  ;  res- 
ignation of,  173;  Cromwell  de- 
scribed by,   164 

Walton's  polyglot  Bible,  Cromwell's 
interest  in,  429 

Ward,  Dr.  Samuel,  Cromwell  under, 
at  Cambridge,  11 

Washington,  George,  Cromwell 
compared  with,  167-8,  465 

Weingarten,  cited,  351,  412 

Wentworth,  Sir  Peter,  Cromwell 
rebuked  by,  at  dissolution  of 
Kump  Parliament,  335;  suit  of, 
against  tax-collector,  387 

Wentworth,  Sir  Thomas.  See 
Strafford 

West  Indies,  English  aggression  in, 
436-8,  442 

Westminster,  treaty  of,  443 

Westminster    Assembly,   the,  144- 

151 

Westphalia,  treaty  of,  439 

Wexford,  sack  of,  292 

Whalley,  Major,  at  Gainsborough, 
126;  at  Naseby,  181 ;  Cromwell's 
letter  to,  regarding  Charles  I, 
233  ;  republican  form  of  govern- 
ment advocated  by,  327;  horse- 
racing  permitted  by,  391 ;  anxiety 
of,    on    election   prospects,   394; 


admission  of  Jews  advocated  by, 

413 

Whitelocke,  Bulstrode,  hostilities 
against  Cromwell  deprecated  by, 
167 ;  monarchy  advocated  by, 
326-7 ;  Cromwell's  conversation 
with,  on  inefficiency  of  parlia- 
ment, 327-8;  conversation  on 
Cromwell  at  Swedish  court,  372- 
373  ;  rigorous  legislation  against 
Jesuits  opposed  by,  412  ;  irregu- 
lar courts  disapproved  by,  455  ; 
cited,  on  Laud,  36  ;  on  Crom- 
well's geniality,  432 

Wildman,  Major  John,  226,  385 

Wilkins,  Bishop,  on  Cromwell's 
view  of  episcopacy,  368 

William  III,  Cromwell  compared 
with,  465 

Williams,  Bishop,  83-4 

Williams,  Richard  (afterward  Rich- 
ard Cromwell),  9 

Williams,  Roger,  413 

Winceby,  Cromwell's  success  at, 
126-7,  135-6 

Winchester,  fall  of,  190 

Windsor  prayer-meetings,  239-40 

Winstanley,  Gerrard,  cited,  282 

Winwick,  244 

Worcester,  Cromwell's  march  to, 
314-15;  battle  of,  315-17 

Wright,  Peter,  fate  of,  412-13 

York,  Duke  of,  459 


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